The Addams Family: Spanning Generations of Ghoul
The Addams Family is Wonderfully Familiar Over So Many Incarnations
Last night’s production of The Addams Family at Mount Holyoke brought back three different embodiments of the delightful cartoonist Mr. Charles Addams, and that is why the auditorium was quickly sold out with eager fans of each incarnation.
It began for me as those cartoons, from the pages of the boring New Yorker magazine, the highlight would be a ghoulish Addams drawing. Then the 1964 black and white television show, with the charming John Astin as Gomez and the slender vampish Morticia. Then for these young’uns sitting next to us, it was that big smile of Christina Ricci’s in the 1991 movie and today…a new Netflix show called …Wednesday!
Tonight’s musical performance was directed by Marc Sokolson with Honoka Masuyama and Eneji Alungbe. The musical was directed by Noah Ilya-Alexis Tuleja with an all-MHC student cast.
The script is family-friendly and includes copious ghoulish references from this death-obsessed clan.
“I’ll show you sewers fit for a queen! As many roaches as possible” requests Gomez. Morticia tells her son sweetly, “Good night my little vermin.”
Standouts include Jay Doane ’28 as Morticia Addams who has a strong singing voice, and Lex Canon ’26’s audience stroll as Gomez Addams who takes the audience with him and strides through the stands, singing.
Daddy Gomez’ best singing number was “I”m Trapped,” with classic and topical lyrics that cracked us up.
Andrew Lippa’s 2010 lyrics for the whole show are so good, they mix in local references and recent news along with a strong musical accompaniment. It’s all great fun.
Like a boat in a lock
The stage set was sparse but had some interesting surprise elements that popped out, like the lightning bolt that struck just as Gomez was talking about lying.
At the end of ‘Just around the Corner,” [or ‘Coronor’ as the morbid Morticia would say], she gets the hook offstage with a huge Scythe of Death.
The show has a full roster of dance numbers and more intricate vocalizing, which made the clever lyrics easy to decipher and funny.
The large cast includes grey-toned dancers (Ancestors) who emerge from the graves and the full family including an old grandma who lives upstairs and nobody is sure whose relative she is.
Uncle Fester, (Olive Benito ’26,) was a crowd favorite, and Pugsley (Tiana DiLeone ’28) proved his chops with the funny contrast of “What If.”
The whole Addams Family phenomenon remains popular in 2024, with one of Netflix’s top shows is a coming-of-age supernatural mystery television series based on the character called “Wednesday.”
The complicated plot of the musical is second to the joyful singing numbers and funny familiar characters, it involves a young man who wants to marry Wednesday and how the two families clash since the Addams are just, well, the song “Once you’re an Addams,” explains it.
And all will be all right
Give us shadows and give us gloom
Broken glass in a motel room
Something fun we can all exhume
And give it all tonight!
One especially popular character from the TV show made just a few cameos, the hairy yellow guy known as “It.” Missing from the musical is one of the fixtures of the old television show…The Thing is a hand that emerges regularly from its box to add merriment to the family living room.
There was no Thing in sight in the musical, but it is a fun show and one most people of all ages will enjoy.
The Addams Family Musical, Oct 30, Nov 2, 3 at Rooke Theater Mount Holyoke College. Tickets