Everybody's favorite ghost-with-the-most has finally made it to Broadway. Beetlejuice appears on stage in this hilarious new musical that subverts all of Broadway's conventions. Based on Tim Burton's classic, other-worldly film, this hilarious new musical is an absolute killer.
Beetlejuice tells the story of a strange and unusual teenager whose whole life is upended when she meets a recently deceased couple in her father's new house. Then, when a dastardly demon with a thing for stripes wants to use her for his own nefarious purposes, she has to figure out what is truly important. With an irreverent book, an astonishing set, and a score that will have you tapping your toes long after you’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, Beetlejuice is musical unlike anything you will see in this world (or the next).
And under its uproarious surface (six feet under, to be exact), it’s a remarkably touching show about family, love, and making the most of every Day-O!
This problematic adaptation of Tim Burton's 1988 cult movie hit doesn't really know what to do with itself. In the title role, Alex Brightman gets more stage time than Michael Keaton's 18 minutes on screen, and with an abrasive, gravelly voice that's one stop short of laryngitis, he knocks his socks off trying to sell the show. But the material, especially the far-from-memorable songs by Eddie Perfect, simply doesn't cut it.
The show, at the Winter Garden Theatre, might have a better chance of persuading us to go on some deep satiric dive here if it was using an adult actress. But Caruso is not yet an adult, although a whopping teenage talent and about the only human to really emerge well from this disaster. Except perhaps for Leslie Kritzer, whose comic instincts as Delia are so great that even the less-than-Perfect's lyrics and the Scott Brown book cannot bury them in bad taste.
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