CMU School of Drama


Saturday, April 17, 2010

Review: 'Addams Family' packs light humor in a dark setting

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "How well you enjoy 'The Addams Family' depends a lot on your expectations.
If you're hoping to duplicate your experiences with Charles Addams' original cartoon drawings, either of the two television series of the pair of recent films, you may be disappointed."

2 comments:

Bryce Cutler said...

This show hasn't been getting the best reviews and it can be seen on it's cast. Nathan Lane was on Regis and Kelly the other day and all he could talk about was how the show wasn't that bad and the critics were wrong. Seriously, Kelly asked him to stop talking about the show for a moment to focus on the game at hand or something. I can't imagine getting so many negative reviews like this and yet having to be positive seven, eight times a week to perform a show critics despise. More power to 'em I guess. IT jsut gets me that producers brought in Jerry Zaks to "save" the show but even that hasn't done much. Oh well... better luck next time?

Hide.T. Nakajo said...

The remake version of other successful media is really hard to expect the same amount of praise from the audience. The spectators also should not expect it in the same way as they might have seen the fantasy world through 2D media. It's a live production. The same can be said about the sound. We are fighting for the best quality of sound for a live show in the theatre, not making CD tracks.

Having said that, I believe that as long as musical is music-al, the primal aesthetic should lie in the music in the piece. I am a musical lover because the emotional energy from the character comes through the music and song, where a play and texts themselves are already interacting with songs.

Disney's musicals and old classic musicals were really made for musical with songs. But adding songs to stories which were originally written for regular movies to bring to broadway musical theaters gives us more challenges we have to carefully deal with.

I have seen some of the remake version, such as Shrek and The Young Frankenstein. They are surely entertaining. But none of music and songs from those production was not so impressive and memorable. Honestly, when I saw some promotional scenes from Adams Family performed for a TV show, my first impression was... "Oh, that's weird." Simply, I would say, not for the musical.