Show/Venue: Beetlejuice at the Winter Garden Theatre
Date: Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019 @ 7pm & Tuesday, January 7th, 2020 @ 7pm
Starring: Alex Brightman, Sophia Anne Caruso, Kerry Butler, Leslie Kritzer, Rob McClure & Adam Dannheisser, Kelvin Moon Loh, Dana Steingold
Website: https://beetlejuicebroadway.com/
After the less than exciting 2018-2019 Broadway season, I was ready for the new shows of 2019-2020 to start! While I’d heard a bit about Beetlejuice from it’s out of town tryout in DC, I couldn’t remember much about the movie other than Winona Ryder as Lydia. Luckily, at the “First Look” new show preview at BroadwayCon, Sophia Anne Caruso came out to sing “Dead Mom” from the show. (Yes, this could have been a trigger for me - since my Mom passed in 2017, but the song is pretty beautiful!) This was enough to pique my interest and I got a ticket while sitting in the audience.
Even for “a show about death,” the book, music & lyrics are so entertaining - you can’t help but escape to the Netherworld with Beetlejuice & Co. for a few hours. In fact, when friends would come and ask me what show to see, I would quickly recommend this one!
It was bit disheartening that the Shubert Organization was going to move Beetlejuice from the Winter Garden Theatre to “make way” for The Music Man in the Fall of 2019. The decision was all based off a slow week of sales in May of 2019, many months before Beetlejuice started to recoup post-Halloween and the Holiday season of 2019. Fans across all across the nation and world banded together to try and save Beetlejuice and to suggest another Shubert Theatre that The Music Man could go into or where Beetlejuice could be re-mounted. Then the COVID-19 virus took over Manhattan, at first shutting down all Broadway theaters until April 12 and today the order was extended until June 7th; effectively ending the run of the show.
I was lucky enough to see the show in previews in April of 2019 and return back for a second viewing in January 2020 (after Rob McClure had departed to star in Mrs. Doubtfire, with David Josefsberg replacing him as Adam Maitland). I was also excited to see Leslie Kritzer’s comedic genius after seeing her in The Robber Bridegroom and Gigantic a few years prior and Alex Brightman, since he was so great in The School of Rock!
While I won’t get to see the show again, here’s my recap and thoughts on the show.
If you saw the cast perform on The Today Show, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or on the Tony Awards, then you’re familiar with the opening number at a funeral! Of course, Beetlejuice (Alex Brightman) quickly appears to tell the audience that this show is (“The Whole ‘Being Dead’ Thing”), in fact, about death. His comedic timing, “Beetlejuice voice” and clever lyrics by Eddie Perfect draw the audience in from the first few minutes. We quickly learn that the funeral is for Emily Deetz, the mother of a young girl, Lydia (Sophia Anne Caruso) and wife of Charles (Adam Dannheisser).
Leaving the funeral scene, we are introduced to the Maitlands, Adam (Rob McClure - April 2019 & David Josefsberg - January 2020) and Barbara (Kerry Butler) who are carefully tending to their home full of antiques and unique valuable items (“Ready Set, Not Yet”). They’ve spent so much time tending to these inanimate objects and other life goals, but they wonder if they should have had children. As our “guide” for the evening, Beetlejuice narrates and lets us know about the rules of ghosts and being dead. The audience learns that if you die in your own house, you can haunt it! Which sets us up for the gag when Barbara & Adam fall through a hole in their floor to their deaths.
Shortly after the Maitlands depart, we see Lydia & Charles moving to a new home (the former home of the Maitlands) with Delia (brilliantly played by Leslie Kritzer), who was hired to tend to Lydia and act as her life coach. We learn a little about Delia’s kookiness and her own guru, Otho - to appear later in the show, with his motto that every “sucks” has a “yes” - making “Sucks-Yes!” This new home will be the model home for a new development that Charles is going to find an investor for. He seems to care very little for Lydia’s grief and instructs Delia to help her. Lydia can’t understand how her Dad moved past her Mom’s death so quickly and how she can get him to grieve and acknowledge his feelings (“Dead Mom”).
In the attic of the house, Barbara & Adam finally figure out that they have died and Beetlejuice reveals himself to them. He tells the Maitlands that they need to scare the Deetzes away, so they can have their house back (“Fright of Their Lives”). However, there’s a catch: only a living person can bring Beetlejuice back to life to help them scare the family away! To do so, the living person must say his name 3 times in a row & here’s where Lydia comes in!
After avoiding Delia’s advice (“No Reason”) & finding out that Delia is actually engaged to her Dad, Lydia flees to the attic and finds the ghosts of the Maitlands. Lydia wants to leave the house as much as the Maitlands want their home back, so they agree to work together to get the family out. Not being able to cope with the possibility of having a step-Mom so soon, Lydia runs to the roof to jump, where she encounters Beetlejuice. She’s not scared of him, but sensing an opportunity - he tries to convince Lydia to bring him back to life (“Say My Name”). He doesn’t succeed, but reveals that any ghost can possess a human and so Barbara & Adam are enlisted to scare Charles, Delia and their investors.
During the big business dinner, Adam & Barbara work to possess the guests; there’s a talking roasted pig, levitation and each character singing part of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” as they are being possessed, but no matter what the Maitland’s try to do, the guests aren’t scared. It’s then that Lydia realizes that she needs to bring Beetlejuice to life! Act One finishes with Beetlejuice coming back to life, the investors being intrigued by a haunted house and everyone running from the home.
At the top of Act Two, a girl scout (Dana Steingold) approaches the home - selling cookies, but with one fatal flaw, a congenital heart condition. Of course, that’s the gag - Beetlejuice loves hearing people scream (“That Beautiful Sound”) and brings out clones of himself to spook any visitor approaching the house - census worker, a neighbor offering pie and a pizza delivery guy. After successfully scaring everyone from the home, Beetlejuice shares a copy of the book, Handbook for the Recently Deceased, with Lydia - but as a living person, she can’t open it. Thinking that the book contains the secret of how she can reunite with her Mom - she seeks out Barbara & Adam for help. With Lydia gone, Beetlejuice reveals that he wants to live outside of this home and needs to find a way to convince Lydia to be his wife! Once she’s his wife, he can wander wherever he wants.
In the attic, the Maitlands help Lydia open the book and realize that they should have gone to the Netherworld - but are too scared to do the right thing (“Barbara 2.0”). They soon realize that they have to be braver; their inability to take chances is what got them here in the first place.
Back downstairs, Charles & Delia have returned with Delia’s guru, Otho (Kelvin Moon Loh, in a camp-tastic role), to save Lydia from the demons! Otho tells her that he has a device that can trap demon souls - but instead, Beetlejuice appears to convince Lydia that a passage from the Handbook will bring back her Mom; only to have it perform an exorcism on Barbara! He only stops once Lydia agrees to marry him and opens a door to the Netherworld - getting ready to send Adam & Barbara through, but Lydia runs through the portal with Charles right behind her.
Once in the Netherworld, Lydia and Charles encounter Miss Argentina (again, Leslie Kritzer in a brilliant dual role), with a story of caution from her passing and other residents of down below (“What I Know Now”). Just then Juno (Jill Abramovitz), the Director of Customs & Processing, appears and finds out that Lydia & Charles are living humans and a chase ensues. Lydia runs and runs, looking for her Mom and sings an emotional ballad (“Home” - which actually made me cry both times I saw the show) as Charles finds and brings her back to their home on earth.
Lydia plans with the Maitlands to marry Beetlejuice (“Creepy Old Guy”), but only so she can bring him back to life to kill him again. This would make him “recently deceased” and he would go back to the Netherworld. Suddenly, Juno appears and it’s revealed that she is Beetlejuice’s Mom! Juno throws Beetlejuice out of the house and is preparing to take Lydia away, when Beetlejuice appears riding a giant sandworm that eats Juno!
As Beetlejuice heads to the Netherworld, the Deetzes, Maitlands and Delia agree that they can share the house (“Jump in the Line”) and the cast comes on the stage in a big encore/sing-a-long! Funny how a “show about death” can put a smile on your face on the way out of the theatre!
Musical Numbers
Act One:
Prologue: Invisible
The Whole “Being Dead” Thing
Ready Set, Not Yet
The Whole “Being Dead” Thing, Part 2
Dead Mom
Fright of Their Lives
Ready Set - Reprise
No Reason
Invisible (Reprise) / On the Roof
Say My Name
Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)
Act Two:
Girl Scout
That Beautiful Sound
Barbara 2.0
What I Know Now
Home
Creepy Old Guy
Jump in the Line