While Broadway’s Tootsie makes a new and invigorating stage to screen transfer, Beetlejuice sticks fairly close to the Tim Burton-directed 1988 cult film comedy about an explosively frenetic demon, a lonely Goth girl, and a milk-toast couple of newbie ghosts. But director Alex Timbers’s haunted-house concept makes this show more than just another movie-into-musical. With David Korins’ zany, skewed sets, William Ivey Long’s freakish costumes, Kenneth Posner’s terrifying lighting and Peter Nigrini’s spooky projections, this horror comedy becomes a hilarious theme-park ride, reliving classic sequences from the film (such as the possession scene set incongruously to the Harry Belafonte “Banana Boat” song) and creating scary theatrical equivalents.
Eddie Perfect’s score is snarky and smart, and Scott Brown and Anthony King’s book retains the film’s joyful embrace of the macabre. But it does not eclipse the original as Tootsie does. For example, Alex Brightman, despite a gritty and grimy dive into the title character’s supernatural nastiness, doesn’t come close to the volcanic viciousness Michael Keaton spewed in the original. He is, however, a twisted and charismatic guide on this horror ride. Sophia Anne Caruso captures the darkness and vulnerability of Lydia, and Rob McClure and Kerry Butler manage to make the meek new specters entertaining.
Leslie Kritzer nearly steals the show with a crafty, multi-layered performance as Lydia’s pretentious stepmom-to-be and a sharp cameo as a demised beauty queen. Jill Abramovitz deserves special kudos for making the most of her brief turns as a plastic trophy wife and a harridan bureaucrat from hell.
