London School of Economics and Political Science Dr. Lourdes Sosa Buh-Da-Da-Dum (Snap Snap)1 Imagine, if you dare, the agonies of the talented people trapped inside the collapsing tomb called “The Addams Family.” Being in this genuinely ghastly musical — which opened Thursday night at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater — must feel like going to a Halloween party in a strait-jacket. Sure, you make a flashy first impression. But then you’re stuck in the darn thing for the rest of the night, and it’s really, really uncomfortable. This is a production that generally offers little to shiver about, at least not in any pleasurable way. The satisfying shiver, of course, was what was consistently elicited by the gleefully macabre cartoons by Charles Addams (which first appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1938). Addams’s cartoons inspired this musical, as well as a 1960s television series and two movies in the early 1990s. This latest reincarnation of “The Addams Family” is clearly relying, above all, on its title characters’ high recognition factor. That such faith is not misplaced is confirmed by the audience’s clapping and snapping along with the first strains of the overture, which appropriates the catchy television theme song. When the curtain parts to reveal a Madame Tussauds-like tableau of the assembled Addamses, there is loud, salutatory applause. It’s true that the show has moments that quote directly from Addams’s original captions. But those captions were for a limited number of single-panel cartoons. So what to do for the rest of the evening? The answer is “everything the traffic will allow.” What’s more surprising is the ragbag nature of the script, which seems to be shaped by an assortment of mismatched approaches. The show begins with the expected milking of classic Addams perversity, in which morbidity is automatically substituted for cheerfulness. But somewhere along the way the plot becomes a costume-party rehash of the proper-boymeets-girl-from-crazy-family story line. Did I mention, by the way, that the Addams homestead in this version is in Central Park? In what appears to be a tourist-courting stratagem, the seeming strangeness of the Addamses is equated with the strangeness of New Yorkers as perceived by middle Americans. The cast includes Mr. Nathan Lane, who brings a star trouper’s energy to one number after another, and Ms. Bebe Neuwirth, whose priceless deadpan manner is one of Broadway’s great assets. Everyone else in the cast tries not to look embarrassed, though it’s not easy in a show that relies on a giant squid to solve its plot problems. That squid is the work of the wonderful puppeteer Basil Twist, who also whipped up a giant iguana and a charming animated curtain tassel. Fans of the “Addams” television show will be pleased to learn that Thing (the bodiless hand) and Cousin Itt make cameo appearances. They receive thunderous entrance applause and then retire for most of the night. They are no doubt much envied by the rest of the cast. Gross % of Potential Revenue (source: www.broadwayworld.com) 1 Adapted from Theater Review | ‘The Addams Family’, by Ben Brantley, The New York Times, April 8, 2010. London School of Economics and Political Science Dr. Lourdes Sosa Longing for a Facial Scar to Simply Vanish: Violet, Starring Sutton Foster, Opens at Roundabout2 (New York Times Critics’ Pick) When Sutton Foster appears on Broadway, she’s usually flapping away in tap shoes and generally behaving like a girl determined to nail the talent competition in a beauty pageant, and maybe take home the Miss Congeniality award, too. But pep-allergic people will not need to steel themselves to see the terrific, heart-stirring revival of “Violet,” the musical that opened at the American Airlines Theater on Sunday night, starring Ms. Foster in a careerredefining performance. The journey to sunrise on this occasion allows Ms. Foster to bring a prickly emotional intensity to the moving story of a woman grappling with self-delusion and the fear that an accident will forever leave her standing alone outside the circle of humanity. If the time has come for Ms. Foster to take her place among the first rank of Broadway musical theater performers, the moment also seems ripe for “Violet,” originally produced Off Broadway in 1997, to be acknowledged as an enduringly rewarding musical. And its arrival on Broadway coincides happily with the increasing appreciation of country music as both an indigenous American art form and a booming genre on the pop charts. The staging retains elements of the stripped-down aesthetic that fits nicely into the show’s rustic groove. The orchestra — or band, it should really be called — appears on a riser at the back of the set. Neon lights and period advertisements suggest the year, 1964, in which the action takes place. It’s not exactly a spoiler alert to reveal that Violet’s wish doesn’t come true. The musical concludes on a satisfying but not too sugary note: by shedding her illusions, Violet has also found a belief that her life’s promise depends on the homelier comforts of human attachments. Gross % of Potential Revenue (source: www.broadwayworld.com) 2 Adapted from Theater Review | by Charles Isherwood, The New York Times, April 20, 2014.
