Musical Mondays: Beetlejuice
Halloween is Wednesday, so what a perfect time for a spooky review. It’s been 30 years since Michael Keaton donned an iconic costume in cinematic history and played his best role of the 1980’s (Batman came out 29 years ago and I stand by my take.) Beetlejuice was a pretty wild comedy—dark, inappropriate, colorful, and absurd. I like the movie, but I didn’t love it enough to feel some type of protectiveness over the movie that people sometimes do. I was definitely interested when I heard they were turning it into a musical. The musical is currently in the middle of its out of town tryout in Washington D.C. What makes this tryout a little different is that Beetlejuice already has tickets on sale for its Broadway run starting in April 2019. Going into the show this made me think that either the show was (1) already going to be good or (2) really shaky and the producers wanted to sell tickets before any reviews came out.
The show isn’t currently perfect, but it’s got a ton going for it. First and foremost, I want to say the costumes are awesome. William Ivey Long, who is from North Carolina which ultimately takes him up a notch in my eye and also has about a million Broadway credits to his name, does an incredible job capturing the spirit of the movie while also making the costumes really pop on stage. Every character looks really good, and there are a couple of fun quick changes that worked well. Similarly, the scenery and puppetry that is used looks really good. All of the sets are appropriately colored, large in scale when needed, and really fun to look at. It was a nice mix of incredibly impressive, large pieces but also attention paid to even the smallest stuff. Once again—it looked good.
I liked the book but could see how some people could be annoyed with it. It obviously follows the major plots of the movie, but some liberties are taken. I haven’t watched the movie in a few years, but the changes I did notice I think made sense for the stage and narrative framing of the musical. And importantly—the book is funny. Beetlejuice is a really funny character—crude and offensive in his jokes in a way that gave me some really good laughs. He is much, much more crude than I remember the movie being—and I was a little shocker to see a girl in my row who had to be 7 years old. That being said, she probably missed a lot of the jokes/crude humor, but I think many of the jokes might have people leaving the theater a little upset if they decided to bring their kids.
The biggest downside for Beetlejuice from when I saw it was the score—it just wasn’t terribly memorable. “Creepy Old Guy (Underage Bride)” was a really funny song I laughed at as it spoke truth to how creepy old men can be, but it was also the only song I could distinctly remember the day after I saw the show. Often in my reviews I note how much I look forward to a cast album—I don’t think as is this would be in my frequent rotation. It wasn’t actively bad music, but it just felt like it wasn’t as strong as the rest of the show.
If they update the score, I think this could be a winner. It will not be everyone’s cup of tea—many people will think the humor is crude and unnecessary; many people dislike the more and more frequent occurrence of turning movies into musicals to cash in on known properties. Both of those can be valid points, but this musical is very visually appealing. It has a lot going for it, and with some tweaks, it could be an awesome time.