The musical opened in 2018 at the Winter Garden Theater in New York. It was received modestly by critics but ravenously by fans, breaking house records at the Broadway theater and developing a devoted cult following. Despite this success, the Schubert Organization (which owns the theater) chose to evict the show in 2019 to make room for a Tony-bait revival of The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.
Long story short, this move was controversial and left a bad taste in the mouth of the theater community. The Music Man failed to win any Tonys and closed with the departure of its leads. Thanks to the support of its fans, Beetlejuice found a new home at the Marquis Theater and is still running to capacity crowds on Broadway to this day.
The national tour of Beetlejuice is currently playing at the Music Hall at Fair Park, and its opening night on Feb. 21, was the North Texas premiere of the show. The fandom came out in droves, with many attendees showing up in costume. If any of the actors were unable to go on, they were fortunate to have several understudies in attendance.
The show’s opening number is “The Whole ‘Being Dead’ Thing,” a song that warns the audience that they’re watching “a show about death” and that they should probably become OK with that pretty quickly. The two leads are introduced right off the bat: Lydia Deetz (played by recent high school graduate Isabella Esler in her professional debut), a goth teen mourning the loss of her mother, and the titular ghost with the most (Justin Collette, recently seen in Broadway’s School of Rock).
The role of Betelgeuse, originally played by Michael Keaton in the Tim Burton film, is admittedly precarious. He serves as a mix between a narrator and a circus ringleader on stage, and most of his lines consist of fourth-wall breaks, meta humor and pop culture references. This bit could get old if handled incorrectly, but Collette is a charismatic performer and brings a lot of charm to the intentionally repulsive demon.
The stage musical is a full hour longer than the film, and that extra time is dedicated to more than just songs. Both the individual characters and the relationships between them are much more fleshed-out onstage. The newly dead newlyweds Adam and Barbara Maitland (played with flawless chemistry and comedic timing by Will Burton and Megan McGinnis) are given time to process the goals they never got to accomplish in life in numbers such as “Ready Set, Not Yet” and “Barbara 2.0.”
Lydia’s grief, a footnote in the film, is the driving force behind her motivations and character development onstage. “Dead Mom,” which reads as a dark twist on a Disney “I want” song, is a highlight of the show and a “star is born” moment for Esler.
And, perhaps most importantly, Betelgeuse is openly bisexual and is equally predatory toward characters of all genders. Love wins!
Some of the most interesting changes from the source material can be found in Lydia’s father, Charles, and stepmother, Delia (Jesse Sharp, Sarah Litzsinger). Charles’ role is expanded from a borderline nonentity in the film to a grieving widower desperate to connect with his daughter but woefully out of touch with his emotions.
Delia, the wicked stepmother originated onscreen by Catherine O’Hara, is considerably softened to the point where she resembles a different O’Hara character, Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek. She’s wacky, vain and out of touch, but she’s ultimately well-meaning and, even better, hilarious. Litzsinger steals every scene she’s in.
Beetlejuice stars Isabella Esler as Lydia Deetz and Will Burton and Megan McGinnis as Adam and Barbara Maitland.
Matthew Murphy
The most universally acclaimed element of Beetlejuice is its set design. The show faithfully brings the atmosphere of the Burton film to life with its striking colors, creative use of forced perspective and a kick-ass giant worm. The latter is in only one scene, but it makes such an impression that it gets to take a bow with the rest of the cast at the end of the show.
Overall, it’s easy to see why something like Beetlejuice may be seen as less a safe bet than a star-studded revival of a classic. Despite being an adaptation of a popular movie (catnip to Broadway producers), it’s undeniably weird and potentially off-putting. A lot of Broadway shows sand down problematic elements from their source material to be as commercially palatable (and tourist-friendly) as possible. An ironic common critique of the Mean Girls musical, for example, is that the girls aren’t mean enough.
Beetlejuice, on the other hand, does away with the film’s PG-13 in favor of a hard R. The movie’s most uncomfortable plot point is the marriage between Betelgeuse and the underage Lydia. A different creative team may have chosen to cut it from the musical entirely, but this show leans into it with the hysterical second-act number “Creepy Old Guy.” Lyrics such as “Have you guys seen Lolita? / This is just like that, but fine” elicited both laughter and audible gasps.
All the things that make Beetlejuice “strange and unusual” are the very things that make it resonate with its fans. With Tim Burton having been in the phoned-in CGI era of his career for years now, it’s refreshing to see a show that actually gets what people loved about his work to begin with. We'll give you a hint: It's not the mall-goth Halloween aesthetic or empty platitudes about nonconformity from conventionally attractive actors sporting a runway-ready smoky eye, at least not if you’re over the age of 12.
To fans of both the screen and stage versions of Beetlejuice, the story is ultimately about finding humor in the dark and the absurd and sharing the laugh with like-minded people, be they teenage goths, middle-aged hippies or ageless demons hellbent on chaos and destruction.
Justin Collette and the company of Beetlejuice: The Musical, now playing The Music Hall at Fair Park.
Matthew Murphy
