Beetlejuice Musical (On Stage) Review
Last summer I gave a quick review of the Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice Original Broadway Cast Recording, rating it a “3.9 untimely demises out of 5.” This past weekend, I had a blast seeing a touring production, so here are my updated thoughts.
I have to say, the stage show is an enormously expanded experience. The cast recording clocks in at a bit under an hour, while the show is a bit over two hours long. If you’ve seen the movie, it’s not hard to piece together the plot in your mind with just the songs, but the connective tissue on stage does make a big difference, especially to supporting characters. Life coach/stepmom-to-be Delia has a fun song on the soundtrack, but otherwise mostly sinks into the background. On stage, she’s probably the second funniest character, completely committed to new-age toxic positivity and physical comedy. Lydia’s father, Charles, mostly a non-entity in the songs, undergoes actual character development and shows a surprising commitment to his family that the songs mostly skip over. It’s probably for the best he doesn’t get whole songs about it, but it does provide a missing piece that the soundtrack lacks. Some of the dialogue is still heavy-handed and exposition-y to keep things moving, but boy do they move.
Beetlejuice and Lydia are still the stars of the show, of course. At my showing, the audience was so ready for Beetlejuice to start Beetlejuicing it up that they gave a prolonged applause in the middle of his first line. The actor playing Beetlejuice gestured to bring it on, really soaking it in… before flipping us off and getting on with the show. He spent the rest of the show bouncing between songs, dances, magic tricks, and surprisingly punch aside jokes: “I feel invisible and powerless… sob… like a gay Republican….”
Lydia, too, has a lot on her plate, having to spin comedy, wise-beyond-her-years maturity, childish impulsiveness, pathos, and endearing dorkiness plates for the whole runtime. She also has a ton of fun, visual jokes that you simply don’t translate to audio which help liven up the show immensely. I have a lot of love for the Maitlands, too, but they probably lose the least translating from stage to soundtrack, so I didn’t feel like there was a ton of new information to work with.
The set design was fantastic. It manages to be incredibly Tim Burton-esque while metamorphosing over and over throughout the play while juggling large ensemble numbers. I was very impressed, and I no theater kid growing up. I imagine real theater kids would be better able to admire the skill and timing required to pull off feat after feat of stage design.
The cast was terrific (whole cast listings available here), and it quickly became one of my favorite theater experiences I’ve had. Gosh, probably 4.7 untimely demises out of 5. Be warned, though. This is still a show about death.