Hayes Theatre, July 14
8.5/10
They’re still creepy and kooky, but they’re also infinitely more of a scream than in the ’60s TV series, of which this 2009 musical is the lovechild. Common to both shows is the centrality of Morticia, on TV played by the lustrous Carolyn Jones, and here by Erika Heynatz in a performance so magnetic that you’d follow her to her grave.
Once again a Hayes show, this time presented by Joshua Robertson Productions, and directed with such panache by Julia Robertson, hits the design bullseye. Designer Dann Barber beckons us into a magical black-and-white world, where all elements other than Morticia’s fabulous gowns seem drawn with pencil and chalk; where Shannon Burns’ choreography harmonises with this, so the characters ooze and slink, materialise and dematerialise, with help from Jasmine Rizk’s expert lighting.
Between them, Robertson, Burns and Barber somehow manipulate space and time so the cast of 16 – huge for the Hayes – never seems to crowd the stage, often thanks to the precision in deploying the six-person ensemble (including, miraculously, becoming a chair!), and the prevailing monochrome look.
The story? Really? Okay, so four love stories are put to the rack until they sing, whereupon writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, release them into the fabled land of happiness.
Gomez Addams, exceptionally played by Marcus Rivera, breaks a sacred vow by lying to his wife, Morticia, and they must be reconciled. Their crossbow-welding daughter, Wednesday (Jenny Guigayoma), falls in love with the polo-shirt-straight Lucas Beineke, and comes to doubt it’s reciprocated until he lets her shoot an apple off his head while she’s blindfolded.
Lucas’s parents (Teagan Wouters and Rory O’Keefe) are bored with their marriage, until something mysterious drunk from a skull-shaped chalice at an Addams dinner lets them unlock the young, loving selves they once were. Uncle Fester, in a fabulous turn by Evan Lever, worships the moon so passionately he’ll bare all to woo her.
Lurch the butler is delightfully downplayed by Elliot Aitken, while towering over the cast in a costume embodying the Addams’ gothic mansion, and moving in s-l-o-w motion. And Wednesday’s punky, younger brother, Pugsley (Georgia Oom), must learn to let go of the sister by whom he adores being tortured.
If the music isn’t quite as strong as the characters and story, the best songs are certainly fun and memorable, led by Morticia’s Just Around the Corner. Brilliantly delivered by Heynatz, this tells of how one should never let life get you down because death is, well, you know where – and she hopes it’s gruesome. To put this in context, Morticia’s idea of a good time in Paris is visiting the sewers.
The seven-piece band, led by Zander Gaal, is slick, and perfectly mixed with the classy singing. We leave having been forcibly reminded that craziness and weirdness trounce reasonableness and normality every night of the week.
Until August 9.