Really, it all boils down to intent. For instance, Shrek. Godawful. But it’s written by award winning (and pretty twisted) playwright David Lindsey-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori (composer of the splendid original musical “Caroline, or Change”). I think one of the reasons that musical offends so much is that the people writing it were obviously cashing in, taking the easy road when they very easily could be producing something vastly more important, if less commercially viable.

So I’ll remain optimistic on “The Addams Family” – for a while at least. It’s at least promising that the people involved took three years to come up with an original plot line instead of very easily appropriating one of the many movie or tv episode plots. I liked Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party quite a bit. And the writers of the book were talented enough to fool everyone into forgetting that Jersey Boys was essentially a jukebox musical. So we’ll see. In any case, you must admit that at closer inspection, this isn’t quite another cynical “Legally Blonde” or “Young Frankenstein”. Which doesn’t mean it won’t be bad. Just a different type.

Imagine a Clockwork Orange musical. How would that not rule? Singing in the rain…