The Addams Family Reign on Broadway

It seems that if writers can't come up with anything original, they head back to their childhood and find a gem that they grew up on. That's how we got the Charlie's Angels movies. One would think that was the case with the Addams Family, the new musical currently playing at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 West 46^th Street in New York City. But instead of relying on the formula of the classic 1960s television show, the producers based this show on creator Charles Addams' cartoons which were published in the New Yorker magazine in the 1940s and 50s.

According to the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation website, the producers were given permission to develop this first-ever stage production of Addams' work because the basis for the show would be on Addams' original black and white cartoons and not on the television series. Indeed, the musical features the character's morbid sense of play, most especially between siblings Wednesday (Krysta Rodriguez) and Pugsley (Adam Riegler). In one scene we see Pugsley suspend in a torture device and Wednesday accommodating him by pulling the lever and causing his limbs to flail and pull, to the delight of the boy of course. When Wednesday announces her intentions to be with a "normal" boy, Puglsley is alarmed that he will lose his persecuting sister.

Wednesday's parents, Gomez (Nathan Lane) and Morticia (Bebe Neuwirth) are also distressed to hear that their once black-clouded daughter has found a silver lining. But Wednesday will not be thwarted and invites her new beau Lucas Beineke (Wesley Taylor) and his straight-laced Midwestern parents - Alice and Mal - to dinner. All goes well until a potion Pugley tries to give to Wednesday to restore her black mood is accidentally gulped by the ever-cheerful Alice (Carolee Carmello).

There is much commotion as the weather turns nasty and the Beinekes are forced to spend the night in the creepy Addams mansion. Wednesday and Lucas have a fight about wether ot not to get married, Gomez and Morticia have a fight because she feels she is getting old and the Beinekes have a fight because, well, because Alice just isn't herself. The characters mix it up and peace is restored, but not before the ghost in the Addams family tree have a chance to sign and dance. The ensemble that plays these chalky looking characters are one of the highlights of this show, and they help out a decidedly weak plot.

Also looking for love in the musical is Uncle Fester (Kevin Chamberlin) who has decided that his amour is no less than the moon. This might seem far-fetch for anyone but an Addams and Fester pulls it off with humor and charm, so much so that you are rooting in the end for the moon to love him back. Feaster is given some of the best songs in the musical and some of his scenes are hilarious.

That can't really be said for Gomez and Morticia, who have their moments but nothing you'll really go away remembering. Lane and Neuwirth are brilliantly cast and play the parts as best as these talented troupers can do. Lane always looks like he is enjoying what he's doing, no matter how lame the lines are. And Neuwirth, known for her dead-pan delivery, is a perfect Morticia.

Some of the best features of the show are the sets, which are interactive with the cast and really lend an Addams Family mood to the theater. Designed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch of Shockheaded Peter fame, they are every bit as sinister and elegant as you would want the Addams Family to have. There are surprises in every corner but nothing that shakes the Addams clan.