“The Addams Family” musical has opened on Broadway, starring Nathan Lane, Bebe Neuwirth, and various twisted monsters created by puppeteer Basil Twist. The show is based on the macabre characters created by New Yorker magazine cartoonist Charles Addams, which were then adapted for four television series, several movies and even some video games.
Some New York theater critics picture the new musical as the biggest bomb on Broadway. Others are more mixed, some downright positive — John Simon called it “entirely worthy of the macabre drawings by Charles Addams” — and several consider it an enjoyable entertainment that, they hint, is critic-proof, thanks to the familiarity of the characters.
Below are some excerpts:

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Jonathan Mandell, The Faster Times:
Everything about the beginning of “The Addams Family: A New Musical”…promises a familiar, funny, even exciting night at the theater. Why, I wondered, did this terrific show get such terrible word-of-mouth? As “The Addams Family” progressed, however, my reaction changed. I experienced what might be called the six stages of musical mortification: excitement, expectation, impatience, disbelief, distraction, disappointment. When, shortly after the beginning of Act II, Uncle Fester asks the audience directly “What happens now? Can this be repaired? Or do you all leave in an hour feeling vaguely depressed?” he was not just talking about the complications in the story up to that point. Unintentionally or as an inside joke, he was also referring to the musical itself.

Ben Brantley, the New York Times:
A tepid goulash of vaudeville song-and-dance routines, Borscht Belt jokes, stingless sitcom zingers and homey romantic plotlines that were mossy in the age of “Father Knows Best,” “The Addams Family” is most distinctive for its wholesale inability to hold on to a consistent tone or an internal logic.

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter:
Bottom Line: Even the talents of Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth can’t make this musical adaptation of the familiar property more than just ho-hum.

David Finkle, Theatermania:
Despite the discouraging words about The Addams Family that circulated as it prepared for its Broadway run at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, this new musical adaptation of Charles Addams’ gleefully contrary cartoons hasn’t turned out to be a complete calamity — although it comes perilously close to becoming one at times.

John Simon, Bloomberg News:
It’s entirely worthy of the macabre drawings by Charles Addams, which once were a mainstay of the New Yorker magazine. You may have seen them adapted to large and little screens, but you’ll conclude that the stage was their destiny.

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press:
a predictable tale of culture clashes between the oddball Addams crew and the square, straight-laced Ohio family whose son wants to marry almost grown-up Wednesday. It’s this juxtaposition of the two families that occupies and undermines much of the musical, particularly in the second act when the anemic plot practically evaporates…Charles Addams’ inspired creations have survived a 1960s television series — use of the TV show’s memorable finger-snapping theme gets a big laugh here — as well as two movies. And they will survive Broadway as well.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post:
One minute the Addamses revel in gallows humor, the next they’re singing about their feelings. Blecch!…In what looks like a move to court the “Wicked” crowd, Wednesday is now 18 and the epitome of vanilla girl power. When she and her paramour compete in “Crazier Than You,” they crackle with the intensity of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber fighting over a Twinkie.

Elysa Gardner, U.S.A. Today
…many will see The Addams Family more for the scenery than the music

Steven Suskin, Variety:
“The Addams Family’ — the 1960s sitcom, that is — was famously kooky, spooky and altogether ooky. The new Broadway musical, based not on the sitcom but on assorted one-panel cartoons drawn over the years by the New Yorker’s Charles Addams, is kooky but not spooky or ooky; nor is it neat, sweet or petite (as the song goes). What this “Addams Family” has is the gloweringly perfect Nathan Lane, who gamely thrusts Gomez’s rapier at anything — or any joke — that moves. But $16.5 million has brought forth an ill-formed one-dimensional cartoon with lines and shading not quite inked in.

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly:
If you have a high tolerance for corn on the macabre, this is the show for you. Lane is the principal ham, milking every punchline in an accent that strays all over the European continent (Gomez is supposedly Spanish). But he also sings a genuinely touching song to his grown daughter, Wednesday (Krysta Rodriguez), who’s gotten engaged to a seemingly square Ohio boy named Lucas (Wesley Taylor). It’s in such quieter moments that the iconic characters on stage become more than mere shtick figures. B

Michael Sommers, NJ Newsroom:
The results are an expert, energetic attraction that could be far sharper in terms of composition, it is likely to satisfy anyone who loves the Addams, appreciates terrific performances and really wants to have more of a comfortable than a brilliant Broadway experience.

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune:
…an enjoyable entertainment, led by the very droll Kevin Chamberlin, a most lovable sort of Uncle Fester, and, as Gomez, the unflappably excellent Nathan Lane, the greatest musical comedian of his generation.

Brendan Lemon, Financial Times:
Move over, Wicked , there’s a new Halloween musical in town, and, unlike its predecessor, it is safe not just for 13-year-old girls but for 13-year-old boys.

Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal:
If you’re a New Yorker with children, or if you’re bringing the family to Manhattan this summer, you’ll have to go to “The Addams Family.” It won’t kill you. You’ll laugh a lot, though never during the unmemorable songs, which are supposed to be funny but aren’t. You’re more than likely to spend a considerable part of the evening wondering how much the set cost. And as you depart the theater, you’ll probably catch yourself wondering whether it was really, truly worth it to take your kids to a goodish musical whose tickets are so expensive that you can buy an iPad for less than the price of four orchestra seats.

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