Dominic Massa / Eyewitness News
NEW ORLEANS – Walking into the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts, you think you have an idea of what’s about to unfold in this musical version of “The Addams Family.”
And yes, while the production is, to borrow lyrics from the familiar finger-snapping TV theme, creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky, it’s also full of charm, wit and surprises that explain why it’s likely to be a family-friendly hit as it takes off on a national tour.
The show is based more on the work of New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams than the campy 1960s TV show starring John Astin, Carolyn Jones and Jackie Coogan. The TV theme song by Vic Mizzy is there, mainly because we’re all expecting it. But the original score (book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa) is so much more.
While the show is about being goofy, spooky, and preferring the afterlife more than the here and now, it’s mostly about love – which the Addams daughter Wednesday thinks she’s found with a young man brought up in a family who’s decidedly different than hers. Or are they? Find out when they meet at the Addams Family mansion. That’s the basic premise.
The show premiered on Broadway in April 2010 and its national touring version originates in New Orleans thanks to a lucrative state tax credit. A show publicist explained Friday night that the cast and crew performing their final shows here this weekend have had less than a month to tweak the touring version of the Broadway musical, adding new songs, making slight changes to the script and assembling the touring cast that will take the show on the road.
Their time frame may have been limited, but this cast is part of the secret to the likely success of the touring version. Broadway veteran and New Orleans native Bryan Batt, who knows a thing or two about Broadway casts and was sitting nearby at Friday night’s performance, confirmed that.
At the top of his list (and everyone else’s) is star Douglas Sills, who plays the patriarch, Gomez Addams, to the hilt. Sara Gettelfinger is a fetching Morticia, with a voice and stage persona to match. When the two tango near the end of the show, you see why they’re perfectly suited for these quirky roles. They make them their own, though following in the footsteps of Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth, familiar for playing the parts on Broadway.
Their children, Wednesday and Pugsley (Cortney Wolfson and Patrick D. Kennedy) are every bit as kooky and ooky as every child actor who’s stepped into those one-of-a kind roles, with Wolfson in particular, as Wednesday, shining in the key role as the lovestruck, but confused, teenager.
Uncle Fester (Blake Hammond) is every bit the oddball we’ve come to expect, serving as the narrator for much of the show and starring in his own “How’d they do that?” scene, complete with a sweet song in the second act and a funny part in the show’s finale.
Perfectly costumed to look every bit their macabre parts, Lurch and Grandma Addams are here too (Tom Corbeil and Pippa Pearthree), along with cast members billed as “The Addams Ancestors,” whose grey and white makeup and costumes make them look exactly as if they had walked out of the nearby St. Louis Cemetery #1.
Speaking of, the scenery and special puppetry adds the “wow” factor to this production, along with the score mentioned earlier, which includes funny, current-day references and more than a few clever turns of phrase. The acoustics inside the Mahalia Jackson Theater sometimes left us wondering if we’d heard those clever lyrics correctly, but not enough to take away from the experience.
Unfortunately the show’s last two local performances are Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. (click here for ticket info). But the city should be proud that such a worthy, though often weird, production is taking off on tour from this local stage.
