‘The Addams Family’ Brings Back Memories
WARSAW — For anyone who watched “The Addams Family” on TV a few years back the musical, now on stage at the Wagon Wheel Center For The Arts in Warsaw, will bring back memories.
The family members are all there — Morticia (Ellen Jenders), Gomez (Denny Bugos), Wednesday (Clara Cox) and Pugsley (Nicholas Lowman).
They are fun to watch. Each turns in an outstanding performance in this musical comedy full of energy and keeps the audience laughing. It is a delightful way to spend an evening.
Jenders is perfect as the mother of this family who lives on the dark side. Bugos compliments Jenders’ character in every way and turns in a marvelous performance as the loving and sometimes confused father.
Cox is fantastic as the young woman who is in love, or at least she thinks she is and Lowman is the perfect younger brother.
Uncle Fester is there. Scott Fuss is superb as the man in love with the moon.
Lurch is there. Andy Robinson has long been a Wagon Wheel favorite and he doesn’t have a real word to say until the final song but his actions are super. He is terrific as the household’s servant.
Grandma is there and Jennifer Dow plays her to perfection.
The evening I attended, when the orchestra played “The Addams Family” theme song at the opening of the musical the audience was quick to pick up on it and clicked their fingers at the appropriate time.
The family lives in a spooky mansion in Central Park in New York City. It seems they are having dinner guests. Or are they? It’s on. It’s off. It’s on again.
Wednesday has grown up and fallen in love with a young man from a respectable Ohio family. The Beinekes, Lucas (Keaton Eckhoff) and his mother, Alice (Kira Lace Hawkins), and his father, Mal (Jordan Edwin Andre), have been invited to the mansion for dinner. All three are talented and it shows.
While Wednesday confides in her father, she doesn’t want her mother to know she is in love and has plans to marry Lucas. This leads to many tricky situations as Gomez usually tells his wife everything and life prior to the dinner would be much easier if he could tell her his secret.
Eckhoff, Andre and Hawkins all turn in award-winning performances as they try to figure out what’s going on at the Addams’ mansion.
Everything comes to a head when at the dinner when Morticia decides they must play a game. Pugsle has stolen a bottle from grandma with plans to give it to Wednesday so he can have his “old” sister back. However, his plan backfires when Alice Beincke drinks it instead. What happens next is hilarious.
Wednesday wants to run away. Lucas doesn’t. What will they do? Wednesday hates Lucas. Wednesday loves Lucas.
The ancestors — Alison Schiller, Monica Brown, Elaine Cotter, Laura Plyler, Audrey Kennedy, Kristen Yasenchak, Dylan Troost, Sean Watkinson, Asher Dubin, George O. Vickers V., Angel Lozada and Alex Dorf — are first-rate. Each one contributing to the over-all fun of the show. The songs fit the musical and the dances require high energy from all involved. They are fantastic.
“The Addams Family” runs through July 25. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” opens July 29. For tickets (574) 267-8041 or on the web at www.wagonwheelcenter.org.