The atmosphere of The Addams Family at Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre is playful from the start, with everything you’d expect from a show based on the popular comic strip about a creepy family with a weird sense of humor.
To kick off the evening, an announcer reminds attendees that photographs are strictly prohibited but the use of guillotines and thumbscrews to torture fellow guests is strongly encouraged.
The story’s patriarch, Gomez Addams (played by show director Eddie Curry) sets the scene for the musical comedy as he laments watching his daughter, Wednesday, grow up, noting, “she’ll be Thursday before you know it.” Complicating matters? Wednesday has fallen in love — and with a very normal boy. In the Addams family, where the drab and dreary is something to be celebrated, teen romance couldn’t present a worse predicament.
The show revolves around the awkward meeting of Wednesday’s and her boyfriend’s families, which struggle to find common ground as their children defiantly pursue plans to wed despite their many protests.
Teen actress Samantha Russell is spot on as the broody Wednesday, whose loyalties are challenged when her over-involved mother appears to disapprove of her choice of a groom.
Russell, a Hancock County native, has mastered both Wednesday’s deadpan nature and the demands of her vocal numbers in the show.
