Jenders, Burgos Find The 'Normal' Heart In 'The Addams Family'
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
“The Addams Family” debuted in 1938 as single-panel cartoons by Charles Addams, with the original television show appearing on the ABC network in 1964. Since then, the macabre family has appeared in movies, animated television shows, lunchboxes and even a best-selling pinball machine. But it’s the original cartoons which the Broadway musical – debuting in 2010 – is based on. Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts is bringing the production to Warsaw now through July 25, with Ellen Jenders as matriarch Morticia and Danny Burgos as her loving husband Gomez. Burgos was King Triton in “The Little Mermaid” and Bernardo in “West Side Story”; Jenders was Rose Alvarez in “Bye Bye Birdie” and Maureen in 2014’s “Rent.” “I think just altogether the characters are just so iconic that from how they were originally created, that’s what we’re basing our characters on,” Jenders said of “The Addams Family” in an interview Monday afternoon. Burgos said, “I feel like the comic strips, the TV show, the movies – the characters are so iconic that not much really does change. They are that macabre family that enjoys darkness. So regardless of which series you do your research off of, you’ll be getting ... the same idea.” Jenders said what makes The Addams Family so loveable is that they take what is normally looked at as ugly and macabre and weird and love it. “They make the ugly pretty, the bad is the good,” she said. “And yet they’re still this downhome family and they have their values.” Burgos said what makes the family so interesting and fun to him is that you really can’t do anything wrong by them “because they’ll find the light in whatever it is that you do, or rather the darkness in whatever you do. You can’t do wrong, because whatever you do they find a way to spin it into a way that works.” As part of the plot of “The Addams Family” musical, the daughter, Wednesday, has grown up and falls in love with a “normal” guy, Lucas. When she wants to bring him and his family home, she asks that the other Addams act normal. Jenders said, “It’s actually all approached from different angles by all the different characters because there’s the big thing of Wednesday not wanting her parents to weird out this new guest she’s bringing. Morticia is thrown for a loop because, ‘This is how I raised you, this is what I think is normal.’ I have a great line: ‘Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is a calamity for the fly.’ So it’s kind of, everybody has their own normal and to the Addams Family, this is our normal. So, I think, trying to portray the ‘normal normal,’ if that makes any sense, it’s broad, it’s comedic.” Burgos added, “I think that’s the best way of putting it. Everyone sees it as Wednesday bringing home a normal boy, but it really is ‘define normal,’ because we are normal. So really what you’re bringing into our home is abnormal. It’s really all based off of that – define normal.” “It’s all about finding balance, I think, too. Making sacrifices,” Jenders said. “Because there is so much centered on Wednesday and Lucas’ relationship and also on our relationship, what sacrifices we make for each other.” “What I love most about The Addams Family is that they’re not necessarily – darkness is not necessarily the foundation of their family relationship, it’s all based on honesty. So everything that we do is honestly what we love and enjoy and we happen to embrace that in one another,” Burgos stated. Some people may confuse the Addams Family’s love for the macabre for evil. Even Burgos, while preparing for his role as Gomez, had some difficulty with that. “I struggled with that a lot when I was thinking about how to approach this character. And they talk a lot about death and they talk a lot about how they can’t wait to embrace it,” he said. “What I found comfort in is the fact that they don’t want to embrace death, they’re just content with what comes after. They’re very confident in that after death comes happiness so they can take a lot of comfort in that.” As soon as the Wagon Wheel announced “The Addams Family” was going to be a part of the lineup this summer, Jenders said she “latched on” and wanted to be a part of it. “I grew up watching all the movies, the TV show, reruns with my parents on our kitchen TV,” she said. “I was super, super familiar with all the characters and I just fell in love with them from an early age because I’ve always been drawn to that type of stuff. And then I did some research and looked at the music and it’s a great contemporary piece. It’s a lot of fun. A lot of broad comedy.” Burgos said what made him fall in love with the show was “the fact that music is fantastic. And I saw, within the context of this season, they were doing ‘West Side Story,’ which has one role for a Latin man, which I am, and it had ‘Addams Family,’ which is another role for a Latin man. And they were both like two very different Hispanic men, like one of them is kind of more somber, and then Gomez who is larger than life and very funny all the time. It was fantastic to see that I could explore both sides of what I want to do as an actor within one season.” Jenders noted the music in the show has a lot of Latin flair to it, and the opening of the show has a Latin feel to it. “We kind of hit all the bases,” she said. “In Act II, I have a vaudeville style number. There’s a lot of contemporary musical theater, which is all of Wednesday’s songs.” Burgos said every character has their own motif. Morticia has a lot of the big Broadway brassy stuff, Wednesday has contemporary musical theater, Gomez has wordy patter songs while Pugsly has one sweet ballad to his sister. “It’s all very character driven. The music is very smartly written,” Burgos said. While Jenders suggested families may want to keep the littlest kids at home – there is some tongue-in-cheek humor – Burgos said fathers should definitely come to the show. “It’s a very – being the dad in the show – there’s even a song in the second act called ‘Happy/Sad’ about like being a father and having to watch your daughter grow up. It’s very dad-driven. You see a father going through a journey, you see a mother going through a journey, as opposed to two people,” Burgos said. “... This show is mother/father watching their daughter grow up. It’s very family oriented. It’s in the title of the show – ‘The Addams Family.’ So I would say it is a very family-friendly show. Like Ellen said, you should probably leave the youngest at home because it is tongue-in-cheek, but it is very family friendly.” To see the full interview, visit the free video section of the Times-Union website at www.timesuniononline.com Tickets are on sale at Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts or can be purchased online at wagonwheelcenter.org The cost of admission is $32 for adults, $24 for seniors, $18 for students and $14 for children up to age 12. Call the box office at 574-267-8041 with any questions. The show is presented by DePuy-Synthes.
