In the opening scene of Beetlejuice, the title character sings, “It’s a show about death.” Yes, there are ghosts and skeletons and exorcisms, but it turns out the comedy is also about living and being seen.
After all, as Lydia says, “You’re invisible when you’re sad.”
The musical made its debut in 2018, based on the 1988 cult classic by Tim Burton. Sure, it’s inspired by the movie, but it takes it creative license to mix around characters and storylines as well as adding raunchier jokes for a “did they really say that” show.
Beetlejuice opens with a dark, gothic funeral scene where Lydia mourns the death of her mother; the mother is a non-character in the film, but on stage is a never-seen character who guides the plot. The moody teen moves into a new home with her father, Charles, and her life coach (and Charles’ secret lover) Delia, where she discovers that she can see the ghosts of Adam and Barbara Maitland. The vanilla couple died in an electrical accident (not a car accident, as in the film) and hide out in the attic among throngs of their hobbies that they never completed.
Lydia is desperate to confront death head on—she’s frustrated that no one wants to talk about her late mother. Meanwhile, her father is “moving forward” after proposing to Delia. Lydia’s all-consuming thoughts of death lend to her ability to see the dead, including Beetlejuice, a demon menace who is invisible to the living. This makes it difficult for him to get a living person to say his name three times to shirk his invisibility—to be acknowledged.
While Beetlejuice has no desire to join the living—it’s a messy rollercoaster of emotions, he says—Adam and Barbara are conversely realizing that they had played it safe their whole lives and never actually got to do anything they wanted to do. So they’re determined to make a change—and “haunt this bitch” to scare away the new residents of the home.
The duo works with Lydia to crash a dinner party hosted by her father, who has turned the house into a model home for a major development. But when the ghosts take over the bodies of everyone at the party—enter one of the most iconic scenes from the movie, set to “Day-O”—the crowd is instead entertained and sees the haunting as a money-making opportunity.
This is where the musical really diverges from the movie, with journeys through the Netherworld, headed up by Juno and a cast of dead characters (by the way, the chorus is put to work in this musical, from a chorus of skeletons, Beetlejuice clones, and lawyers to a gospel choir). In the depths of the Netherworld, the show comes to its climax.
After an hour-and-a-half of laughs, Lydia falls to the floor after a gut-wrenching cry for her mother. I did not anticipate being close to tears at a show with sand worms and dead football players.
Her father and her finally let it out—Lydia is afraid she’ll forget her mother. Charles, meanwhile, shares, “I’m not comfortable with feelings.”
There are subtleties I enjoyed through the musical. The dead wear green while the living don gaudy purple clothing, but Lydia bridges the two in her Victorian gothic black lace. The house is a character in itself, changing in the same color schemes as well until Lydia and Beetlejuice take over the house in black-and-white stripes. Soon everyone is wearing black, a bridge between the living and the dead as they coexist. And a little theatre magic is fun, from levitation to fire balls, sentient shackles, and special effects.
The rest of the show is a clear departure from the movie, with no visits to planets and a model of the city but instead portals to the Netherworld, banishing demons, saving ghostly friends from the soul box, and child brides. The cast closes with another Harry Belafonte hit, “Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora),” a song that once made Lydia sad because it reminded her of her mom; now it makes her smile.
Both the dead and the living come to terms with their reality, with the audience taking away the lesson that you don’t want to wait until you die to really live.
P.S. Don’t worry, the shrunken head does make an appearance.
Beetlejuice is playing at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts through June 7.
