Review: The Addams Family at Silhouette Stages

By Yosef Kuperman

Approx. Running Time: 2 hours with one intermission

The cast of The Addams Family. Credit: Jeremy Goldman

The Addams Family is a 2010 musical adaption by Marshall Brickman, Rick Elise, and Andrew Lippa of the venerable media property of the same name. As Silhouette Stages latest offering, Directed and Choreographed by Tommy Malek, with Music Direction by Rachel Sandler, it pays enough homage to the original to please the many fans snapping along with the theme song, but also remains open enough for the uninitiated to enjoy.

Expect the trappings of the modern musical genre: fast music, energetic choreography, one-liners interspersed into the dialogue, predictable crescendos in the songs, and some cracks in the fourth wall. But also expect an authentic entry in the Addams Family universe. I’m only loosely familiar with the characters, but I didn’t need a score card to recognize anyone.

(l-r) Heather Moe as Wednesday, Caitlin Grant as Grandma Addams, Vincent Musgrave as Gomez, Michael M. Crooke as Fester, and Santina Maiolatesi as Morticia. Credit: Jeremy Goldman

Silhouette Stage’s production values are up to snuff. Set Coordinator Becca Hanauer and Scenic Artist Jessie Krupkin have built a two-level stage that doubles (with different dressings) as the family crypt and the front room of the Adams house. These set changes don’t delay the show because they create scenes set outside those areas in front of the curtain, allowing seamless (at least from the audience perspective) transitions. (Central Park, for example, is outside the curtain.) The two levels allow the performers (including a ten-person ensemble dance team done up as Addams family ghosts) the space to create the show’s dance numbers.

Heather Moe as Wednesday Addams. Credit: Jeremy Goldman

All of the actors gave superb performances. Heather Moe’s Wednesday captures her character’s introversion and expressive-nonexpressiveness. Vincent Musgrave’s Gomez appears genuinely caught between his daughter and his wife. Sammy Greenslit, the kid who played Pugsley on opening night, not only captured his character’s fear of losing his sister but also carried his songs beautifully. I could go on, but with such a large ensemble and featured characters, I’d just like to make it clear that every actor on the stage gave 100% effort and added great value to the production, as a whole. Kudos to the entire cast!

Okay. Now the fun part… the script/story, itself.

I can imagine a lot of stories you could tell in The Addams Family. The writers chose to tell a romantic comedy. By scene 2, I expected a meet-the-parents romcom that turns on a scandalous/unacceptable/unexpected romantic partner. Fester (Michael Crook) literally enters in Scene 2, breaks the fourth wall, and explains the plot directly to the audience, thereby setting expectations.) But this isn’t a normal romcom. Instead of focusing on the people getting married, the play’s main character is Gomez. He’s a middle-aged father seeing his daughter Wednesday growing up and keeping his marriage with Morticia (Santina Maiolatesi) alive. The show then (in a super meta twist) closes with a conventional romcom ending. Everyone leaves happy in a world famous for embracing the macabre and depressing.

Michael M. Crooke as Fester and Ensemble. Credit: Jeremy Goldman

The Addams Family argues that the root of its character’s problem is their futile attempts to be normal, attempts that fail because nobody is really normal. The Addams refer to themselves as “crazy” and Wednesday’s fiancé Lucas’s (Drew Sharpe) family as “normal.” Lucas’s family is “normal” because they’re from the “real America.” (“Real America” is apparently not in New York City but rather in Ohio…) The two families spend the first act trying to convince the other family that they’re totally 100% normal Americans. But neither family is actually normal in any conventional sense of the word. Lucas in fact spends as much time trying to get his family to pretend to be “normal” as Wednesday spends lobbying hers.

In this universe of oddballs, normality becomes a shared illusion. Everyone knows the basic script and tries to perform it. Both Lucas and Wednesday make their families pretend to be normal. They think everything will go smoothly if they can just fool the other side for an evening. Neither side succeeds. But this mutual attempt at deception generates conflict only resolved by the characters embracing the unique “crazy” in each of them. The conformist desire for normality in fact caused the problems the characters thought their quest for normality would solve.

Drew Sharpe as Lucas, Ashley Gerhardt as Alice, and Richard Greenslit as Mal. Credit: Jeremy Goldman

Is this script perfect? I thought the plot suffers from a lack of focus. This show has four romantic plots running through it, plus other Addams family dynamics. This leaves some plot decisions rushed. There’s so much story that the show does not have time to develop everything as much as I would’ve liked but I’d like to make it clear this is not a production problem, just a script problem.

Like a few other modern Broadway shows, the Addams family has multiple versions. Silhouette Stages is producing the revised “Touring” version and, judging by my research, there are significant change from the original cast album. The original apparently included an assignation with a giant squid. (I am unclear on how that could even fit into the plot and a little scared to ask.) You can hear the original sound track on (at least) Google Play and decide based on that. Overall, however, this is a polished, well put-together production that you don’t want to miss!

This is what I thought of Silhouette Stage’s production of The Addams Family… What did you think? Please feel free to leave a comment!

The Addams Family will run through October 28 at Silhouette Stages, 10400 Cross Fox Lane, Columbia, MD. For tickets, call the box office at 410-637-5289 or purchase them online.

Email us at backstagebaltimore@gmail.com

Like Backstage Baltimore on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter (@BackstageBmore) and Instagram (BackstageBaltimore)