THEATRE Copyright Lighting &Sound America June 2010 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html current Broadway early ‘90s kept the characters alive for show has been a new generation. properly. more anticipated As Stuart Oken, the new musical’s With its than The Addams lead producer, told the Chicago seedy Victorian Family , especially Tribune , the creative team drew their atmosphere, pitch given the felicitous inspiration almost entirely from the black-humor, and casting of Nathan 150 drawings that feature the grotesque cast of Lane and Bebe Neuwirth as Addams Family, aiming to capture characters (most of whom America’s favorite ghouls, Gomez and their atmosphere of grandiose decay come to untimely ends), Morticia Addams. As the production and slyly inverted values. For plot Shockheaded Peter certainly headed to Chicago for its out-of-town purposes, the authors made one demonstrated that McDermott and tryout, its level of audience major change: Wednesday Addams, Crouch had an Addams-like sensi - awareness was off the charts—a previously a spooky little girl, is now a bility. producer’s dream. young adult, and is in love with Lucas The show marks the Broadway Be careful what you wish for: The Beineke, a nice young man from debuts of McDermott and Crouch, publicity turned into scrutiny when Ohio; the action is set in motion when who have their own company, the Chicago notices were mixed. Lucas and his parents show up at the Improbable Theatre, in London. The Under pressure, the company went to Addams home—located in Central Broadway experience led to many work: Marshall Brickman and Rick Park—for a pre-nuptial get-together. ironies. For one thing, says Crouch, Elice tweaked the libretto, Andrew Naturally, everything that can go “They call Broadway a big canvas, Lippa replaced songs, and Jerry Zaks wrong, does; a dinner-table game but, when you’re there, you’re was named “creative consultant.” called Full Disclosure sets off crises in working on some of the smallest And, as it arrived at Broadway’s both families, with Lucas’ parents stages in the world. We started on Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, The Addams making especially shocking personal The Addams Family at the same time Family continued to defy expecta - discoveries. (The structure is similar we started working at the tions. Despite chilly New York notices, to Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take Metropolitan Opera [on Philip Glass’ it continues to post spectacular box It with You .) Satyagraha and John Adams’ Doctor office numbers, surpassed only by Whatever one thinks of The Atomic ], and, in each case, I felt like those long-running institutions, Addams Family , the physical an anthropologist, dealing with Wicked and The Lion King . The production, beyond question, different tribes. On Broadway, you Addams Family appears to be that captures the style and spirit of have lots of technical time; at the extremely rare thing: a critic-proof hit. Addams’ work. Like the cartoons, it is Met, you have no time, and you have Never underestimate the power of full of subtle wit; the longer you stare no previews; you do seven shows, a beloved cultural institution. The at it, the funnier the joke becomes. and it’s over.” This was in contrast to cartoons of Charles Addams were This may be in part because it was The Addams Family ’s long stay in part of The New Yorker in its postwar developed in an unusual set of Chicago for revisions. heyday. Especially popular were those circumstances: How many musicals Crouch entered this Broadway featuring an unnamed family of ghouls can you name where the directors project with his eyes open, however. whose cozy domestic life always and designers are the same people? “The big thing that governed the featured a macabre twist. (One classic design was, it’s a big musical,” he depicts the family, on the mansard House of horrors says. “You know it’s going to roof of their Victorian home, preparing Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, change—a lot. Therefore, you can’t to drop boiling oil on a group of who designed and staged The design it so that it’s fixed in any way.” Christmas carolers below.) The Addams Family , came to the project Instead, he notes, they went members of the so-called Addams with a unique set of credentials. As modular: “We designed a kit of Family were given names for the U.K.- based theatre artists, they were parts—items like shutters and stair - television series, which, despite a best known in this country for cases—so we could invent new s u c r a relatively short run (1964-66), probably Shockheaded Peter , a Grand Guignol locations, if necessary, which it M n a did more to embed Addams’ humor entertainment based on a mid-19th- was. Obviously, you’re dealing with o J : o into the American mind than anything century German book written to The Addams Family ’s house, and t o h P else. A pair of films released in the terrorize children into behaving people know what it is, so you’re tied 64 • June 2010 • Lighting &Sound America www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • June 2010 • 65 THEATRE into certain parameters. But we tried stage goods,” says Tankleff. “That cases, like an M. C. Escher print.” to design something that allowed us was a big help in determining the The transition from the park to the to go from scene to scene very fast.” correct lift lines.” interior of the house is one of the In addition, there was the issue of Indeed, the way scenery is show’s biggest scenic moments. “The authenticity. “We had the rights to all revealed is unusually important here. little house falls over, following a clap of Addams’ work, up to the beginning The curtains rise for the opening of thunder,” says Crouch. “The of the TV series,” adds Crouch. “We number, “When You’re an Addams,” Addamses are standing behind it. As had to tread carefully around certain set in the family cemetery. This they walk forward, the little house is things made famous by television and location, when first seen, is fronted by pulled up. The staircases come on the films. On a physical level, the a towering pair of wrought-iron gates. and almost crash in the middle of the series didn’t look like the drawings— The effect is that of a double reveal. stage; they become a bridge in they had to light them more brightly in The cemetery, in many ways, consti - Central Park for the Beinekes to those days. Also, the house in the tutes the show’s design thesis, as it cross. Then the stairs are pushed series is more furnished. In the establishes many of the key visual upstage, the portraits fly in before the cartoons, they basically live in a ideas. It strikes the right comic-gothic walls do—we thought that would be derelict home with little furniture. note, and also establishes the fun—and the walls are pulled up into Addams wanted you to look at the prevailing mood of stylization. It also place. We see the ancestors push the cartoon and see the joke; he doesn’t introduces an enormous moon, which stairs to the side, and the chandelier distract with extraneous details.” will prove to be a big plot point. (A arrives just a little too late, as the The action of the show never crypt also provides a point of entry Beinekes ring the doorbell. It’s as if leaves the house and surrounding for the “the ancestors,” the chorus of the house is being created before the area, but there are many locations, deceased Addams relatives who add audience’s eyes, but a little bit late.” including the family graveyard; zing to some of the numbers.) “The The show’s scenery was built by Morticia’s room; Gomez’s “grotto;” a thing is to show your hand at the Hudson Scenic Studios, Showman small chamber where Wednesday beginning of the show, what your Fabricators, and Chicago Scenic Top: The first-act finale, “Full Disclosure,” tortures her brother, Pugsley; and language is going to be,” says Studios, with automation by Hudson. takes place in the great hall, with a chan - delier and paintings of the Addams several in-one locations. The elegant Crouch. “Addams never drew a Rose Brand supplied precision-cut ancestors. Left: Morticia’s room; the red show curtain, a glorious Victorian graveyard, but I was keen to play with Encore fabric for the foliage on the designers stuck to Addams’ vision of a grand, but dilapidated and sparsely fur - drapery featuring gold tassels and the idea of gates as curtains. The Central Park trees. nished house. Below: A series of thumb - nail sketches by Crouch show how the trim, is the first of Crouch’s kit of curtains open up, then a gate opens One of the show’s biggest talking layout for each location took shape. h c parts; rather than simply going up, it up for you to see the characters.” points is the Act II number “The Moon u o r C prowls up, down, and around the The designers came up with an and Me,” in which Uncle Fester n a i l u proscenium in different configura - approach that allows for fast scene professes his undying love for that J f o y tions, framing different locations in changes: a triptych arrangement of lunar body. Again eschewing fancy s e t r u and around the house. “I like playing walls. Those at stage left and right are technology, the number is staged in o C : with old-fashioned design tools in a heavily louvered, making them suitable front of a black drop, with puppets— s g n i w set,” he says.