I went to see The Addams Family on the 19th January at the Alexandria Theatre in Birmingham. The show began with a spotlight of the iconic severed hand doing the clicks from the main intro. The main plot was a slightly more grown up Wednesday Addams falling in love with a high school jock called Lucas. It was then a tale of the two polar opposite families meeting. I really enjoyed the plot and I thought there were some good plot twists to liven up the story. After the interval the plot was less dramatic and more heartfelt which so the different realisations and resolutions made by the individuals. All characters had detailed costumes that represented their characters perfectly including the ensemble ghosts. I think that the plainest outfit was Morticia’s long black dress but due to her movements and characteristics it suited her really well.
The set designers also used every inch they could to display the weirdness of the family. The stage floor had a cobweb like pattern on it and was off centre with all the walls being at angles to reflect the strangeness of the family. This disproportionate set was the perfect backdrop to the story. The use of a moving staircase was very clever. It began as the entrance to the house and then morphed to be the wall of a torture chamber. This enabled the show to have a quick pace as little time was wasted changing scenes as well as providing a recognisable backdrop. However, I found that the roof of the house blocked the view of upstage for the audience who were sat quite high up in the theatre. I found that you couldn’t see the comedic expressions as the characters first entered the house but you could see the rest of the scene so it wasn’t that obstructive.
My favourite character would have to be Lurch the butler. He was slow moving and made grunt sounds instead of talking. He was used as a physical comedic relief. However, at the end of the show he comes out with an amazing final song which is almost operatic where he shocks everyone including the characters on stage. As soon as he finished, he makes some more grunt sounds and went back to his original character.
This show was a musical so there was a lot of dancing in it. In most scenes there was some dancing especially from the ghosts of the house. The ghosts all had a different character which they represented perfectly despite all having the same choreography. My favourite was definitely the ballerina as she most of her time en pointe which was really impressive. There was always at least one present in all of the scenes. Their movement was very slow but always crisp to add to the scene rather than distract the audience. They were also normally using different height levels doing the same movements to frame the scene occurring. In a scene in the forest, the ghosts all had long sticks to replicate the branches of the forest using flowy movements. This made it seem like the forest was alive and watching the actors on stage. The most memorable number for me was the tango number of Morticia and Gomez. It was a very delicately choreographed number. Morticia’s long skirt being pinned back to show her crisp and clean leg movement. The actress Joanne Clifton, is a professionally trained dancer which definitely showed through here as the choreography was very clean. These precise sharp movements contrasted Morticia’s graceful and smooth movements from the rest of the show, enabling the audience to see another side to her character.
Overall, I really enjoyed the experience of the show. I really like the attention to detail in the set and costumes. I will definitely look into putting levels into any choreography I do to break up the formation as well as how to characterise the choreography given to me like the cast did in this, whether it be a facial expression change or putting emphasis on a particular movement. This show was different to ones I had scene in the past and I think I will definitely see more like it in the future.
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