The Addams Family dials up nostalgia

It’s been a while since the batty Addams Family made an appearance with their creepy, kooky characters.

It’s tough to improve on the talents of 1960’s sitcom actors John Astin and Carolyn Adams. Or for that matter, the 1991 movie that entrenched this cartoon family in pop culture with Anjelica Huston’s magnificent Morticia, an empowered goddess of the dark side or Raul Julia’s Gomez, a fantastically wealthy over-the-top lothario deeply devoted to his family.

And then there was a much younger Christina Ricci as Wednesday whose deadpan deliveries created a variety of morbid, yet comedic twists.

It was impossible not to be charmed by the close-knit family, their traditions and innocent discovers as they thrived in a world more twisted than our own.

However, Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice adopted Charles Addams cartoons and gave them a new platform as The Addams Family – The Musical. It plays this weekend and next at Leduc’s Maclab Centre for Performing Arts.

Essentially, it is the story of a young couple that gets engaged. But their impending union is a catalyst that reveals the mid-life angst in their parents’ marriages.

Veronica Masik (Kiss of the Spiderwoman/The Drowsy Chaperone) has landed the prize role of Wednesday, an indomitable force with a split personality that one moment demonizes her brother and the next falls in love with a straitlaced young man from the mid-West.

“She’s very deadpan, very somber, almost borderline psychotic. She’s known for torturing her brother, not because she’s mean, but because she doesn’t realize she shouldn’t be doing it,” says Masik.

Masik received her early theatre training at St. Albert Musical Theatre and later graduated with a science degree from the University of Alberta. Today musical theatre is a recreational pursuit she is deeply committed to.

Up to the present, most of Masik’s parts were secondary roles or chorus segments. This is her first major speaking character and she’s studied the play thoroughly to find the right character arc.

“I’ve always wanted to play a villain. Although Wednesday isn’t a villain, she is creepy. Wednesday is falling in love and she’s never had these feelings before and she’s realizing how wonderful they are. And for Wednesday, it can be terrifying, and she’s never been afraid of anything.”

However, Masik welcomes the opportunity to bring such an iconic character to life and thrives on the character’s self-indulgent passion for the morbid.

“I watched the TV show growing up. I thought the characters were funny and I enjoyed their dark humour. It’s strange for them to be so dark. But the things they enjoy are dark and they are perfectly happy to enjoy that life.”

A second St. Albert actor, Russ Farmer, has landed the role of Gomez, the overly dramatic family patriarch still deeply in love with his wife.

Farmer landed his first role in The Drowsy Chaperone 18 months ago and this is his fifth production since then.

“It’s so addictive,” laughs Farmer, founder of Foot The Door Productions.

To create Gomez’s Spanish personality, Farmer even went so far as growing a moustache, something he is personally adverse to.

“It came in greyer than I wanted,” he chuckles, “Besides, there is nothing worse for an actor than having a fake moustache become unattached while you’re singing. It’s distracting, so I decided to go for the real thing.”

For the show, Farmer has also learned to manipulate a fencing foil and worked with a vocal coach not only to speak with a Spanish accent, but to sing in one.

And he’s in six songs including the sweet ballad Wednesday’s Growing up and the flamboyantly Latin flavoured Trapped.

“I’d say this show has a great core of actors. It’s funny. It’s upbeat and its characters are persons you will recognize.”