Review: ‘Beetlejuice the Musical’ at the Auditorium is unstoppable — nothing this critic can do
Sometimes a critic just has to admit defeat.
And while it rankles to lose so decisively to a narcissistic demon with convict attire, a crude sense of humor and the worst hobgoblin haircut since Drew from “Rock of Ages,” this battle is over.
O-ver. To use a soccer analogy: That’s “Beetlejuice” 1, critics 0.
I couldn’t stand “Beetlejuice the Musical” on Broadway in 2019. “The Beetlejuice is rancid,” I wrote. “And be sure not to bring the kids for a drink.”
My objections? Oh, an incoherent and crass book, an Act 2 that makes zero sense, a surfeit of crude and tasteless jokes about “Creepy Old Guys” and so on, a pandering Eddie Perfect score, messy staging and overblown performances. I saw it as the poster child for why highly stylized movies directed by the auteur likes of Tim Burton are rarely good choices for musical adaptations. They are, to borrow the words of Stephen Sondheim, a hat upon a hat.
And that first chapeau is all you need.
I was not alone in my detestation; there were others in my corner. But the curtain still rose on packed “Beetlejuice” houses, night after night. Yet more incredibly, the show even came back from the dead during a COVID-19 crisis that took down half of the Broadway shows in production.
After closing in March 2020, “Beetlejuice” responded to popular appeal and reopened in 2022. It even swapped Broadway theaters, a rare and costly move that producers typically resist, and ran for another nine months.
Fast forward to Wednesday at the Auditorium Theatre, a beautiful but under-booked venue that has not seen a Broadway tour since before the pandemic. That’s because the presenter Broadway in Chicago has a deal with the Auditorium but only rents it when its other theaters are full. (Right now, we have “Company,” “Hamilton” and “Boop! The Betty Boop Musical” all in residence in the Loop, huzzah).
The place was packed, all the way to the gills (and, at this venue, that’s a long way). Audiences arrived dressed up as the Wednesday Adams lookalike Lydia Deetz, both of the Maitlands and, of course, the big kahuna himself. In every shade of the rainbow.
Each crass crack in Scott Brown and Anthony King’s book was met with squeals of delight, and the shrunken-headed puppet (which I have to admit is cool) was greeted like it was Taylor Swift stopping by her standby line in Buenos Aries.
In the seat next to me, an audience member-slash-narrator kept saying “Cool!,” “Scary!” or “Creepy!” as if she were a recording stuck on repeat. And from the row behind, my left ear was filled with, “Wow, wow, and they haven’t even gone to the netherworld yet.” I do not need my house blown down to know which way the wind blows.
People love this movie. People love this musical.
The latter is a credit to a touring cast that stars Justin Collette as you-know-who, alongside three very strong women: the moving (yes, moving) Megan McGinnis who plays Barbara, Kate Marilley who actually makes sense of one-note Delia, and, above all, Isabella Esler who will knock your socks off as Our Lydia of the Power Ballads.
Incredibly, Esler, a whopping young talent, just graduated high school. What fun it was to watch her lean into the Auditorium’s famed acoustics and let it all rip. She’s so good, she almost made sense of her show.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Beetlejuice” (2.5 stars)
When: Through Nov. 19
Where: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive
Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Tickets: From $55 at 800-775-2000 and www.broadwayinchicago.com
