Well, I guess the law of diminishing returns had to kick in sometime. It does so with a vengeance in the lackluster musical adaptation of “The Addams Family’’ that has arrived at the Citi Performing Arts Center Shubert Theatre. Those grunts you hear coming from the Shubert are the sounds of a cast trying - and to be fair, sometimes succeeding - to elevate fundamentally mediocre material.
This national touring production, a retooled version of the show that ran on Broadway in 2010-2011, is sporadically entertaining, especially when the stage belongs to the witty and deft Douglas Sills, who plays Gomez with just the right amount of clueless would-be suavity, augmented by a cackling cascade of a laugh. “Addams Family’’ opens promisingly, with the entire ensemble performing one of the show’s better numbers, “When You’re an Addams’’ in a fog-shrouded graveyard.
But too many of composer Andrew Lippa’s other songs are forgettable, too many of the jokes are predictable (even though the book was written by a couple of talented wordsmiths, Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice), and too much of the production feels like a commercially calculated brand extension rather than a fresh dive into the famously kooky universe of “The Addams Family.’’
The fulcrum of the franchise’s humor has always been that the Addamses see themselves as entirely normal, a family like any other - the ghouls next door, if you will - while the outside world reacts to their morbid appearance, lifestyle, and general doings with horror and dismay. In the musical adaptation, directed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (the duo also designed the consistently stylish sets), the outside world is represented by a young fellow named Lucas (Brian Justin Crum), who wishes to wed Wednesday Addams (Cortney Wolfson, a fine singer) despite her unsettling habit of carrying around a crossbow.
