Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
The Addams Family is a musical that ran at Mediacorp’s MES Theatre from November 15 to December 3 2017.
The musical is based on the well known TV show of the same name, which aired originally in the United States for two seasons in 1964. Incidentally, The Addams Family actually started out in 1938 as a series of cartoons featured in The New Yorker.
The Addams Family musical focuses on Wednesday Addams (Carrie Hope Fletcher), daughter of Gomez and Morticia Addams, who falls in love with Lucas (Oliver Ormson), a regular boy she meets. She’s afraid her parents won’t accept their relationship, and things go awry when she invites Lucas and his family to her house for dinner with her weird and macabre family. And that’s when things don’t go as expected in this household, and the story gets even more exciting.
The songs and music in this production are very catchy, with very clever and cheeky lyrics, and all the performers sing beautifully – although Ormson’s voice is a little weak and pop-sounding. Fletcher in particular shows her musical theatre experience and expert poise, as her rich voice carries the most difficult of notes with such ease and sweetness, hitting us with her powerful vocals when needed.
Charlotte Page who plays Lucas’ mother also puts in a spectacular performance as her character goes from being delicate to strong, requiring Page to sing in different tones to accommodate this change.
The set is stunning and innovatively converts from the inside of the Addams home to the outside, just by the sliding of some staircases. The set also uses minimal movement to turn into various rooms inside the Addams’ mansion. The costumes are well thought out, and follow the TV show’s look very closely.
Despite some of the comedic lines failing, most of the dialogue is very funny. So with a good and humourous story, great music, superb singing and acting, and lovely costumes and set, The Addams Family may be almost 80 years old but this grand dame makes for a timeless concept of “family” that entertains even today.
