We are big Addams Family fans around here. I've probably seen both movies over 20 times each. Travis has one Addams inspired tattoo, and it going to start on the second soon. We love the show. We love the comics. We hated the board game, but saved the pieces to use as decoration. So when a customer came through Travis' register at work at offered us free tickets to the Addams Family Musical at TPAC we were super excited! Our best friends Crystal and Marc happened to be available also, so we all went together.
And in case you happen to be an Addams fan as well, I feel like I must warn you.
IT WAS TERRIBLE! Talk about disappointment. The curtain rose on a cool graveyard scene and the opening number was great and we were giddy (well, at least Crystal and I were) with excitement! But it just got worse and worse. It felt like we were watching a terrible Disney Channel movie, the characters just happened to be the Addams Family.
I DID like the Addams ancestors. I love the idea of an elaborate costume, with all the pieces being white so you are a ghost. I might use that for my halloween costume this year! There was a great number (one of only three I liked) where Morticia sings "Death Is Just Around the Corner" while dancing with the ghosts and a Death figure. But almost every other song was awful. There were tons of pop culture jokes (Charlie Sheen? Really?) but almost none of the silly macabre humor that the Addams are known for. I just don't understand how the show is popular (and the audience we saw it with seemed to love it). The curtain was really cool though.
The main story line is Wednesday is in love with a "normal' boy and wants her family to behave and not scare him off at a dinner. She basically acts like a brat for the whole play, with no characteristics you would expect out of Wednesday Addams. She GIGGLES and SQUEALS and runs around, and almost every interaction between her and her love interest is a fight, so you can't even understand why they are in love. Morticia and Gomez even fight for half of the play, which is just so wrong. Their extreme devotion is one of the things you love about them!
One hilarious moment was when a cousin It puppet makes an appearance at the start of the second act. The way the crowd reacted you would have though some huge star was making a surprise cameo. The cheers and screams went on for probably two minutes!
There is a random secondary storyline about Fester being in love with the moon. That provides the other song that was actually fun, even though it seems really out of place during the play. It involved some puppet legs that made me cry with laughter.So in conclusion, if you love the Addams Family and see this play is coming to town, avoid it. It is not the Addams Family that you love. It is a super cheesy (and not in a good way) musical. I would have been SO pissed if we had bought the tickets. We did have fun singing "Full Disclosure" the rest of the night. That song ends the first act. And is terrible.And speaking of terrible, there was a "photobooth"set up with a girl to take your picture with the Addams family cut out. She wouldn't let anyone take their own picture, just kept insisting that you could see your picture on Facebook the next day. Here is the one she posted of us:
Hahah! I can't stop laughing about how bad it is! And she took FOREVER looking through the viewfinder and lining everything up. What the heck!
