A nod to nostalgia: The Addams Family review

Meenakshi Sathish
Staff Writer

      The show starts with Thing snapping his fingers along with the illustrious tune that gets the audience humming along. Then, gifted by the presence of Cousin It, the audience gets that “altogether ookey” feeling that this musical is going to be the best. Apex High’s Laura Levine blasts everyone to the past with her spectacular debut as a musical director. It is not easy to direct a musical since it takes a choreographer, stage director, and a voice coach to make it all come to life. However, the real concern was how Ms. Levine was going to keep the magic from the original television series and 1991 movie. Nevertheless, they pulled it off and with such utter brilliance. 

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      First thing’s first: Gomez and Morticia still have it! For the ‘60s and ‘90s kids, Gomez and Morticia were the unconventional relationship goals due to their healthy relationship of respect, loyalty, and shared interest of corpses. Lucas Beckett’s interpretation of Gomez’s sassy yet happy-go lucky outlook on life met with Morticia’s dark and sultry disposition by Rachel Hartner lit up the stage. Soon enters Wednesday, played by Ainsley Seiger, with her iconic grim and dreary self who can be related to by every high school student who has to wake up at five in the morning. Her Shakespeare-esque relationship with Lucas, played by Peyton Salazar, kept the audience screaming in their heads, “Please end up together, Queridas.” Wednesday and Lucas is the true definition of OTP (one true pairing). Danny Martin as Uncle Fester, the lovable hopeless romantic, made us sigh and giggle at his love for the moon and his narration of the Addams’s crazy antics in the name of love and family (respectively). Not to forget, Aren Marsh was the most adorable Pugsley on Earth! As he sings about how much he will miss his sister torturing him with homemade electricity shocks and pendulums, we all couldn’t help but want to go home and hug and strangle our siblings (Addams-style of course). A special thank you to Daisy Bingham for creating the best Mama we have seen in ages. The voice, the hunchback, the potions, it all made us wish that she was our grandmother!
      The wonderful play was the best kind of funny: it was punny! The humor had people clutching their stomachs from the laughter pains but also had the spectators crying like babies in very honest and profound parts of the play.  While all the songs were super entertaining, the most memorable was when Beckett and Seiger performed the genuine melody of a daughter and father sharing a heart-to-heart moment together. It reminds us that every family is the Addams family, give or take some units of scary.