There are tons of jokes, sung and spoken, in Beetlejuice, the genuinely funny musical version of Tim Burton’s 1988 horror comedy classic. They’re delivered at rapid pace over two acts and with such volume you’ll feel certain you probably missed a couple of real zingers. But its biggest joke is a practical joke played on the audience, the nice, musical-loving, living, breathing people who pack halls like they did last night for the opening presentation of a Houston stop on the production’s national run.
The joke is the show is about death. The title character, splendidly brought to manic, ribald life by Ryan Stajmiger, rubs it in our faces mere minutes into the evening in “The Whole ‘Being Dead’ Thing,” the first full song of more than a dozen, including a couple fans of the source material will recognize and sing and dance to, at least if they’re as living and breathing as Hobby Center’s crowd was opening night. The story’s pro-/antagonist gleefully sings, “You’re doomed! Enjoy the singing,” and “The women’s bathroom has no line here/Just…Pee where you want!” about the Netherworld, the show’s depiction of death’s abyss and a place some folks might have opted for at intermission once those pre-show drinks settled in.
Of course, the show isn’t about death, it’s about the opposite, but its story does begin with a funeral – dark, dreary and an immediate nod from set designer David Korins to the Tim Burton universe. We meet Lydia Deetz, Beetlejuice’s goth teen queen, (Leianna Weaver) who is mourning her mother’s passing when the scene-stealing “ghost with the most,” (a line from the film, not scripted into the musical) arrives and joins an ensemble of mourners to crow about our eventual demise.
As might occur on the first night in a new city, there was some sort of technical glitch which paused the whole being dead thing. The show stopped, the cast went off and the house lights went up for a 10-minute interruption, just after Stajmiger delivered the fourth wall-breaking lyric, “So don’t be freaked/Stay in your seats/I do this bullshit, like, eight times a week!” When things returned to normalcy, the show didn’t resume, it re-started, which allowed Stajmiger to cheekily deliver the revisited line as “I do this bullshit, like, nine times a week!” to the crowd’s delight and as a sign that the night would be a fun homage to irreverence.
We meet the not-irreverent couple Barbara and Adam Maitland (Kaitlin Feely and David Wilson), who are living a normal, boring life when they’re killed by electrocution, one of the many minor detours the book by Scott Brown and Anthony King takes from the film. What remains true to the blueprint is Lydia and her father, Charles (Jeff Brooks) move into the Maitlands’ home, unaware that the previous owners’ spirits remain there. The Maitlands want their place back and concoct a plan with Beetlejuice to scare the newbies out of house and home. For his expert assistance, Beetlejuice exacts a specific price: get one of the livings to say his name thrice, in succession, so he can escape from the loneliness of the Netherworld to return to the living.
The trio’s plan is laid out in “Fright of Their Lives,” which gives Stajmiger, Feely and Wilson a chance to play up the differences between the freshly dead Maitlands and Beetlejuice, the “needy pervert,” as Adam describes him in song. The interplay between the odd ménage à trois is the best opportunity to note that Beetlejuice isn’t for kids. Wilson delivers a couple of G-rated dad jokes but a lot of the content is innuendo or flagrantly foul fun, particularly when Beetlejuice is on, making desperate plays to be the Maitlands’ undead third.
Lydia’s grief and depression allow her to see the ghosts most would miss and she joins the plan to scare Charles and his employee/lover Delia out of the house so she may return home to New York City. Bailey Frankenberg takes on Delia, the character portrayed on film by the late, beloved Catherine O’Hara, and she masterfully presents everything over-the-top about Delia while simultaneously showing subtle respect (and a bit of a physical resemblance) to O’Hara.
Act I ends with the quartet’s scare play, with “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” giving the relatively small cast and ensemble a chance to shine, choreography-wise. Upon return from intermission, we learn the haunting was successful with “Girl Scout,” one of the funniest songs of the musical. The words and lyrics for the songs come from Eddie Perfect. The lyrics run from playful and naughty and unflinching to tender, when the moments call for them. There’s some fun self-awareness there, too, like Beetlejuice mentioning the audience drinking $50 wines, or how the crowd can take a joke because they’re woke (and, it must be noted, there was a lot of loud cheering in the Hobby Center lobby after the show once show-goers learned the state went Blue during the performance). Even Broadway takes some hits, with Perfect getting digs at Rodgers, Hart, and Hammerstein and making Brigadoon a running joke.
It all feels kind of punk rock and the tunes do sound like Broadway gone emo. There’s a bit of pop punk in the mix, or maybe it’s just Stajmiger’s green hair and rebellious vocals that remind us of NOFX punk icon, Fat Mike.
Credit: Matthew Murphy
Act II involves Lydia, Charles, Delia and the Maitlands growing in different, positive ways, as alive and dead folks, respectively. That growth has little need for Beetlejuice and the remainder of the musical sees them teaming to exorcise the demon from the lives they want to live – not a bad lesson. There’s a trip to the Netherworld where Miss Argentina serves as a guide and we see some of the film’s notable characters, like the shrunken head guy, Harry the Hunter. There are sandworms and a Handbook for the Recently Deceased and lots of reminder that, as noted in the opening number, “That’s the thing with life/No-one makes it out alive!/Toss that body in the pit/”Gosh, it’s awful, ain’t it tragic?”/’Blah, blah, Bible. Jesus magic.’/When you’re dead, who gives a shit?”
The joke on us is that Beetlejuice rants about death but leans into everything we can enjoy now while we’re still here. Family, especially. Friends, absolutely. The notion that we can master our own destinies until the day death masters our ultimate fate. Don’t let the jokes fool you. Beetlejuice is about the whole “being alive” thing.
Beetlejuice continues through November 9 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and at 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $55-$167.
