Fright Night: “The Addams Family” and “Carrie” – creature features perfect for Halloween
The splendid and splendidly attired cast of “The Addams Family.” Photo by Isaac James Creative
It may not be arriving on a broomstick, but 3D Theatricals’ production of “The Addams Family” touches down Saturday, on Halloween night, in the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center. Even better, it’s a ghoulishly mirthful show.
Based on the New Yorker cartoons that Charles Addams began drawing in 1938, as well as on the mid-1960s TV series, the musical was written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (co-authors of “Jersey Boys”), with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa. The show opened on Broadway in 2010 and then set off on a cross-country tour a year later, after some extensive revisions.
Directed by the company’s executive producer and artistic director T.J. Dawson, “The Addams Family” touts its professionalism from the start with a dazzling song-and-dance number called “When You’re An Addams.” That is, after the orchestra has performed a groundswelling overture that incorporates the well-known theme from the television show, the one that goes duhn-duhn-duhn-dunh, snap, snap. You know which one I mean, don’t you?
The storyline is a bit shaky, but the entire production as well as the casting is top-notch, first-rate, and thumbs-up. And so to the story itself.
Do you remember the hit song by Dion and The Belmonts from the early ‘60s called “Teenager In Love”? Good, neither do I. But in this scenario Wednesday Addams (Micaela Martinez) is now older than her brother Pugsley (Dante Marenco), and she’s not only fallen in love with the very normal Lucas Beineke (Dino Nicandros) but has agreed to marry him. First, however, she wants to do a “meet the parents” sort of introduction and invites Lucas and his folks, Mal (Robert Yacko) and Alice (Tracy Rowe Mutz), to the Addams family mansion for dinner. Some of us may be wondering why Wednesday isn’t marrying, say, Eddie Munster instead of a kid from Ohio, but maybe daughters are expected to rebel against and confound their parents’ expectations. At least this one does.
Morticia (Rachel York), Gomez (Bronson Pinchot), and Wednesday Addams (Micaela Martinez). Photo by Isaac James Creative
Wednesday isn’t so sure that her mother, Morticia (Rachel York), is going to approve of her future husband and his family, so she only confides in her father, Gomez (Bronson Pinchot), and has him promise not to tell Morticia about the impending nuptials. This puts Gomez on the spot because he has never withheld a secret from his wife, and if she finds out then all hell might break loose (perhaps not as big a deal to the Addams family as it could be for the rest of us).
If you’re thinking that’s sort of a meek subplot, you’re right. On the other hand, asking us to accept that weird or wacko Wednesday is going to fall in love with an ordinary college kid is also pushing the limits of credibility.
However, if we momentarily remove the outer trappings, we have a story about a young lady who is seeking her own identity, ready to leave the nest and make her way in the world. That in itself doesn’t sound like much fun, and it certainly doesn’t fit our notion of an Addams Family episode, but that’s why we have the other odd and quaint members of the household — Uncle Fester (Anthony Gruppuso), Grandma (Candi Milo), and the zombie-like servant Lurch (Dustin Ceithamer)–to come in and save (or sabotage) the day.
The show scurries along with zippy one-liners and tangential vignettes, such as Uncle Fester playing his ukulele and crooning about his new love in “The Moon And Me” (yes, he’s in love with the Moon) or Pugsley’s being afraid to go to sleep because there may not be a monster lurking in his closet or under the bed. The illuminated faces that appear as stars in the former and the dragon that appears in the latter are prime examples of what keeps “The Addams Family” amusing throughout.
The encounter between the Beinekes and the Addamses is predictably bumpy, although with Mutz blossoming as her part opens up and becomes more active. Not to be left out of any write-up of this engaging show is the 14-piece ensemble, the Addams ancestors, who emerge en masse from the crypt all dressed in whitish-gray outfits that tell us who or what they were when they were alive–a conquistador, a Viking, a saloon girl, a cowgirl, a jilted bride, even a flight attendant. For dead people, they bring out the best in Dana Solimando’s choreography.
Alice (Tracy Rowe Mutz), Lucas (Dino Nicandros), and Mal Beineke (Robert Yacko), with everyone’s favorite servant, Lurch (Dustin Ceithamer). Photo by Isaac James Creative
As noted above, the casting closes in on the superb, with Rachel York (who dazzled us in “Anything Goes” at the Ahmanson) being the star attraction as the sultry, slinky, and urbane Morticia. And she’s in good company. Uncle Fester, for instance, is an impish Peter Lorre type, and the spiralingly tall Lurch gives us a little surprise at the end.
There’s a scene late in the show where Gomez is comforting his daughter and then espies Lucas behind a tree, listening in. How long have you been in the shadows? Gomez asks him. Instead of saying “Only a couple of minutes,” the boy replies: All my life. It’s an answer a lovesick lad would give, right? Woe is me, and all that. But it’s also, inadvertently, the kind of response that delights Gomez who, with perfect timing, turns to the audience and says “Nice.”
The musical is chockful of these “nice” moments.
The Addams Family, which just finished a run in Fullerton’s stately-grand Plummer Auditorium, opens Saturday, Oct. 31, for six performance in the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, 1935 E. Manhattan Beach Blvd., Redondo Beach. It plays Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 2 p.m., and also next week: Friday, Nov. 6, at 8; Sat., Nov. 7, at 2 and 8; and Sunday, Nov. 8, at 2 p.m. Tickets, $20 to $70 (plus $3 handling per ticket). Call (714) 589-2770, ext. 1, or go to 3dtshows.com.
“Plug it up”
Emily Lopez as Carrie and Misty White as her mother, Margaret White. Photo by Jason Niedle
From one angle, “Carrie” (billed as “the killer musical experience”) is about a much-bullied teenage girl who gets her revenge, big time, on her high school classmates, but looked at another way it mirrors the dilemma that Wednesday confronts in “The Addams Family.” Oh? How’s that? you say. Well, Carrie also has a singular mother who has shaped her life and behavior, and now the daughter is trying to assert her own individuality. In “The Addams Family,” Wednesday suddenly appears in a yellow dress, an indescribable shock where black has been the color of choice for most of the clan. With Carrie, who’s been rigged out in prehistoric clothes for most of her life, it’s in the new prom dress that she herself has sewn.
But let’s not stray far from our theme of two creepy shows, both of them just what the coroner ordered for Halloween.
Under the helm of Brady Schwind, “Carrie” had a limited engagement a few months back in La Mirada. As Schwind told this paper at the time, his mantra is to create theater-going experiences that combine the epic with the intimate. Local theater patrons had a taste of this when Schwind presented a few well-received productions at the Neighborhood Playhouse in Palos Verdes, and these included “Amadeus” and “Parade.”
“Carrie” itself began as a novel, penned by Stephen King in 1974, then made into a movie by Brian de Palma in 1976. It was remade for the big screen in 2013. A Broadway musical appeared in 1988 and fell flat. In 2012, Schwind saw a scaled-down revival, an off-Broadway production that fared a little better. But Schwind is that rare bird, a person who can spin dross into gold, and he approached the creative team (composer Michael Gore, lyricist Dean Pitchford, and writer Lawrence D. Cohen) with his own ideas of how to amp up the show.
High school, just as you remember it, right? Photo by Jason Niedle
The rest is history, or at least a campy, melodramatic musical, where tragedy shakes hands with the supernatural.
“Carrie” has an energetic young cast and the vibrancy of a rock musical, and the audience may feel that they’re back in their old high school gym attending a concert or a dance, with plenty of humidity and sweat. But one of the things that makes the show extra special is that it’s being staged in the Los Angeles Theater, which opened in downtown L.A. back in 1931 when attending a movie was an event, like opera, and not simply a pastime. They were called picture palaces, not multiplexes, and while the Los Angeles Theater’s grandeur has faded it’s still elegant, even magnificent.
“Carrie” stars Emily Lopez as Carrie and Misty Cotton as her mother, Margaret White. The story itself is simple: High school is cruel, and kids who are perceived as different get picked on. Carrie herself is neither bad nor stupid, but she does bear the brunt of being the only child of a single mother, a mother who is a religious fanatic, to put it gently. There’s one girl, Sue Snell (Kayla Parker), who feels sorry for Carrie, and tries to do an altruistic deed by having her boyfriend, Tommy Ross (Jon Robert Hall) take Carrie to the prom instead of her. He needs a bit of prodding, but Tommy finally agrees, and once he does he treats Carrie as well or even better than one might expect. So, Brownie points for him.
The lobby of the stately Los Angeles Theater where “Carrie” is being performed. Photo by August Bradley
But then we have the mean kids, in particular Chris (Valerie Rose Curiel) and Billy Nolan (Garrett Marshall), who hatch a scheme to humiliate Carrie just at what should be the happiest moment of her life.
“Carrie” has also been billed as an interactive musical, but this is only accurate if one has seats in the “Senior” section, which is comprised of four stage-level movable bleachers that hold maybe 24 people each. These bleachers, on rollers, are shifted around from time to time by cast members. While this may or may not be a thrill for those in this presumed elite section, the bleachers when pressed closer to the action sometimes obscure the sightlines of those viewers farther back, in the “Junior” section, certainly, and possibly for those in the higher-up “Freshman” and “Sophomore” sections as well. The bleacher benches don’t give one much leg room, and they’re likely to give people a sore butt. No comfy chairs here.
However, the musical has a vibe and a theatricality not unlike “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” where there’s a lot of excitement and outrageousness (and in this case some nudity). Carrie, and I think everyone knows this going in, has telekinetic powers that seem to lie dormant until she gets very upset, and then they come racing out. It’s not the result of any maliciousness on her part, but rather the forces within that are not so easily contained.
Like a fireworks display, there’s a grand finale that dazzles and awes. Things crash and explode, catch fire, people die horrible deaths, all that good stuff, which is ideal for a horror story musical and perfect for this weekend–or any other.
“Carrie” has a few catchy tunes, such as the ironic “A Night We’ll Never Forget,” and some impressive singing as well (both Lopez and Cotton nail it), but despite the novelty staging it still falls short of being a great musical in itself. But as for being quirky and entertainingly peculiar, well, it doesn’t have much competition.
Carrie: The Musical is onstage through Nov. 22 at the Los Angeles Theater, 615 S. Broadway, Los Angeles. Performances, Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m., this Saturday (Halloween) at 6:30 and 11 p.m., also Saturday, Nov. 14, at 6:30 and 11 p.m. On Saturday, Nov. 7 and 21, shows are at 2 and 8 p.m., and on Sundays performances take place at 2 and 6:30 p.m. Tickets start at $40. Call (888) 596-1027 or go to ExperienceCarrie.com.