Lights! Costumes! Magic! Beetlejuice Brings the DPAC Audience to Its Feet!
This article was published in the Triangle Review on 12 April 2023.
Kenneth Posner's complicated lighting design (superbly executed on the road by Joel Shier, Samuel J. Biondolillo, and David Arch) is a highlight of the Durham Performing Arts Center's presentation of Beetlejuice: The Musical, which plays now through Sunday, April 16th. The show starts when the pulsating yellow light within the red, diner-like "Betelgeuse" sign that dominates the stage disappears into large flashes of green and blue that evolve into bright white bars outlining the stage in a blinding rectangle.
A series of spotlights focus on center stage, revealing the dark blue background and a woman's gravesite, with her teenage daughter mourning beside it. The speechless characters disappear and Beetlejuice (played by Justin Collette) suddenly appears, looking into the audience with such effect that he garners applause before uttering his first word. "Welcome to the show about death," Collette sings, his voice deliberately rough but comically versatile, as a chorus in black dances around him. The music could be mistaken for a professional recording.
The action settles on the family room of a young, upper-middle class, progressively Yuppie married couple -- Barbara and Adam Maitland, played opening night by Juliane Godfrey and Will Burton. Beetlejuice introduces the couple and their purpose -- which is to die -- with footwork and body gestures perfectly timed to transient lighting and invisibly moving objects.
After the Maitlands' deaths, their house is bought by Lydia's father, Charles (Jesse Sharp); and Lydia and Charles move in, along with Charles' new girlfriend, dramatic yogi-hipster Delia (Kate Marilley), whom Charles has hired as Lydia's life coach.
The costume and physical appearance of Lydia (Isabella Esler) is delightfully reminiscent of Christina Ricci's wardrobe as Wednesday in the 1991 film adaptation of The Addams Family or the costumes that Winona Rider wore when she played Lydia in Tim Burton's 1988 movie Beetlejuice. Whether speaking or singing, Esler's voice is prominent and clear, with the made-for-stage lilt and vibrato of a pop star.
Kate Marilley's positively caricature portrayal of trophy-wife-wannabe Delia is a laugh-out-loud foil to Lydia's dark philosophical nature. And Marilley can sing. She nails her solos with theatrical aplomb that leaves the audience giddy.
The acoustics (Justin Stasiw, Ryan Gravett, Cory Raynor, and Mason Wisecup) show no traces of over-miking, which is particularly impressive during the high notes belted out, Diva-like, by Esler's somber yet comic performance of "Are You Here, Dead Mom?" And you hardly realize that Rod Lemmond's and Justin West's changes of scenic designer David Korins' sets are happening, so pleasantly distracting are the beautifully creepy, Van Gogh-like images of night-time forest and sky that appear in 3-D between scenes (Kate Ducey, Lacey Erb, Chelsea Zalikowski, Daniel Scully, HMS Media).
Delia and, more often, Beetlejuice deliver poignant one-liners that never fail to make the audience laugh. Justin Colette's manner of waiting for the audience's laughter never fails to increase it, and his gags are corny yet still surprising, thanks to expert delivery of the hidden stunts required to create his ghostly magic -- kudos to the plethora of folks involved behind the scenes. But be warned that Beetlejuice sometimes uses the F-word or refers to lewd sexual acts, making the production unsuitable for children and young teens.
The house is now haunted by the dead married couple and Beetlejuice, whom Lydia determines will scare her father into selling the house, so that she can move back home with her mother's memory. The perfect opportunity arises during a dinner party with Maxine Dean (Lexie Dorsett Sharp) and his fifth wife Maxie (Matthew Michael Janisse), culminating in the hilarious performance of "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" made iconic in Burton's 1988 film. The song ends with an enormous Beetlejuice puppet overtaking the stage, his giant head and hands controlled by different puppeteers, so that the totality looks like something in a Salvadore Dalí exhibit.
After intermission, the audience is startled into the second act with an explosion of lights and sound, as the "Day-O" music continues throughout multiple scenes, demonstrating Lydia's haunting new life, now that her father and Delia have been scared away. Lydia and Beetlejuice scare the bejesus out of anyone who knocks on their doors, entertaining themselves and the audience with their non-empathic antics.
We witness the expanse of William Ivey Long's costume designs (recreated for this touring production by Paul Spadone, Savannah Wetzel, Dorathy Johnston, and Kaitlyn Fae Barrett's) when Lydia and her father encounter the dead characters in the Netherland. The super-glittery red dress worn by Miss Argentina (Danielle Marie Gonzalez) fits her dead blue body like a glove as she sings and dances with the talent of a real-life beauty-pageant winner.
Lydia eventually discovers that the love and meaning that she's searching for is with her living family here on earth, and the action dissolves into a feet stomping, full-cast production number of "Jump in the Line (Shake Senora)," the calypso song made famous by the 1988 movie. The production literally ends with a bang, and the audience is left in a standing ovation, wondering at the length of this physically and vocally exerting production, and how quickly the time went by. This show will entertain even those partners and friends who don't like musicals.
