Perfect touch gives extra juice to staging of movie's musical adaptation

The Australian

18-05-2025

Do not make the mistake of ­assuming Beetlejuice The Musical isn't for you.
TS Eliot praised Edgar Allan Poe's 'powerful intellect' then dismissed it as that of 'a highly gifted person before ­puberty'.
I feel much the same about Tim Burton's filmmaking. I can admire the glorious imagination of it but his pre-adolescent eccentricities and overall lack of coherence in his movies exhaust me.
This musical adaptation of Beetlejuice, then, is an absolute marvel. It retains the look, the basic plot and the Harry Belafonte song-and-dance set pieces of ­Burton's 1988 movie, but improves virtually everything else. Even ­design.
The emotional and dramatic details are sharper and vastly more persuasive.
The tweaks to the plot and backstories are subtle enough not to alienate existing fans, but will attract – and resonate deeply with – new fans, young and old.
One gets the feeling Burton wasn't all that interested in Lydia, Winona Ryder's character, next to Beetlejuice himself (Michael Keaton). In this stage adaptation, with a book by Scott Brown and Anthony King, and music and ­lyrics by Eddie Perfect, Lydia's story is given equal weight.
Like Beetlejuice, Lydia (Karis Oka) feels invisible. (The very first sung line is Lydia's: 'You're invisible when you're sad.')
This musical adaptation of Beetlejuice, then, is an absolute marvel. Picture: Michelle Grace Hunter
While movie-Lydia's 'goth' appearance felt like a sulky self-­indulgence, or a mere style choice, stage-Lydia's dress is patently a reflection of what she's feeling: she's in mourning for her 'dead mom'.
If you want to get a sense of the power, razor-sharp focus and sophistication of this piece, listen to the song Dead Mom from the original Broadway cast recording, or look for Sophia Anne Caruso's jaw-dropping performance of the song online.
The lyrics are thrillingly smart. They're also identifiably Perfect's work, with a delicious meta-­theatrical quip about jokes not landing. Crucially, he gets Lydia. He understands her confusion, frustration, loneliness and grief.
Lydia, her father Charles and soon-to-be stepmother Delia have just moved into a house once owned by Barbara and Adam, recently deceased. Trouble is, Barbara and Adam can't move on to the netherworld, thanks to Beetlejuice having burned their handbook, so they try their damnedest to frighten the new residents out of their big old house. They're learning (to be ghosts) as they go along. (Barbara's idea of scary is micro-plastics, Adam's is Duo­Lingo's pushy green owl!)
Fun as Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam (a shockingly boyish Alec Baldwin) were in the big screen original, the musical gives the 'Maitlands 2.0' a whole new motivation.
Elise McCann and Rob Johnson play Barb and Adam like a latter-day Brad and Janet from Rocky Horror, but their antics manage to be as sweetly touching as they are comedic.
Likewise Charles (Tom Wren) and Delia (Erin Clare) are less cartooned in the stage adaptation. Or, in Delia's case, differently cartooned. (She's an air-headed but well-intentioned 'life coach' rather than an appalling and insufferably pretentious sculptor.)
BJ himself is still 'a needy pervert' – in Barbara's barbed words – but he's far less aggravating than the screen original. Even he earns a backstory. (No spoilers here!) In the title role at long last, Eddie Perfect is far more than a growling ringmaster – he impels the show.
I honestly didn't think anyone could match the first stage Lydia, Sophia Anne Caruso, but I didn't miss her a bit! Like the real life red supergiant in the constellation Orion, Betelgeuse, Karis Oka reveals herself to be one of the very brightest stars in the firmament. A supernova in the making.
And, generously, Perfect lets Oka take the ultimate bow.
Tickets: $75-$265.95 plus service fee. Bookings: Ticketek. 2½ hours, including interval. Until August 3.