THE ADDAMS FAMILY - BOURN PLAYERS
The Addams Family sits on my treasured bookshelf. It has done for years. Charles Addam’s post-war cartoons are a source of constant delight with their spooky take on ordinary life. So it was with a sense of both excited anticipation and a dash of Gothic fear that I went to see the musical version of this comically dark tale of ghoulish mundanity. I need not have feared.
The Broadway show is a delight and the production by the Bourn Players was outstanding. When the overture began before curtain rise, I assumed it was a digital recording, the band sounded so good. Not so. This was a live ensemble ably directed by Ben Davidson. There was the familiar thumb-clicking tune. The set was very well done – atmospherically lit windows in high Dracula-castle style and series of movable screens doubling as forbidding gates and room dividers. Cleverly done as the scenes were managed by white-clad ‘ancestors’ – essentially a chorus of singers and dancers who represented the dearly departed (some of long ago). The choreography was excellent and the director Jo Davidson marshalled all her forces with skill and aplomb.
The strength of this show lies in its very catchy, nicely old-fashioned score (hummable tunes abound) and a very witty book full of smart Noo York humour (not suprising as one of the writers was a long-time collaborator of Woody Allen). The cast was unusually strong for an Am Dram production. Body bags of talent here.
Glen Van Ginkel was particularly convincing as Gomez Addams, the moustachioed romantic deeply in love with his wife Morticia. She was excellently played by Rachel White as was Lizzie Ward Bolton as Wednesday, the girl who loves to torture her brother (literally). She has a very fine theatrical voice and brought the haunted house down with her big numbers.
Other parts were equally impressive; Damion Box as the well-filled spectre, Uncle Fester, deeply and madly in love with the moon. Tracy Burch caught the lunacy of Grandma Addams to perfection as did Ben Strutt as the giant Frankenstinian butler, Lurch.
Production standards throughout were of the highest quality and it was clear that the large cast loved every minute of this macabre musical. So did we.
