THE ADDAMS FAMILY by Marshall Brickman, Rick Elice and Andrew Lippa (Dancap). At the Toronto Centre for the Arts (5040 Yonge). To November 27. $62-$180. 416-644-3665, dancaptickets.com. See Listing. Rating: N
Is there a polite way of admitting that the best part of The Addams Family is when Gomez motorboats his buxom wife, Morticia? There might be no tasteful way of getting that across, but then, neither taste, wit nor originality have anything to do with Dancap’s DOA import.
The touring cast of this unfunny spectacle seems both committed and resigned to the task of yowling through two and a half hours of boring, obvious songs about TV’s wackily morbid brood. Wednesday Addams, played with clarity by Cortney Wolfson, wants to marry the “normal” Lucas Beineke, a forcefully bland Brian Justin Crum, and this necessitates an awkward dinner for the two mismatched families, a la Meet The Fockers.
Douglas Sills charms as Gomez, although he has more chemistry with daughter Wednesday than he does with Morticia (Sara Gettelfinger). Blake Hammond has a lot of fun as a sexually ambiguous Uncle Fester, channelling Leigh Bowery in his second-act pledge of love to the Moon.
In addition to the aforementioned motorboating, I enjoyed the lush velvet curtain, elegantly manipulated to focus and frame certain scenes, and a dancing gold tassel that appears two or three times, depending on the speed of your blinks. A couple of songs are bearable.
Other than that, The Addams Family is a dizzying parade of bad jokes and banal music.
Dealing with your own family is challenging enough. Best to leave the Addamses to contend with themselves.
