by Elizabeth Sherwood
This isn’t your older brother’s Beetlejuice… It’s a musical about death. Or so it portends in the big opening number.
Broadway vet Kerry Butler, who plays Barbara Maitland, spoke with 1010 WINS’ Elizabeth Sherwood while the show was in previews. She said that the opening number ("Invisible/The Whole Being Dead Thing") is key to getting the crowd excited: “After that first song - they’re there.”
What follows is a story about the Barbara and James Maitland, a young couple who just moved into an old house and want to have a child. They die by falling through floorboards and are visited by a poltergeist, Beetlejuice, who tells them he has to have a mortal say his name three times… enter Lydia Deetz who moves into the house with her father and almost step-mom.
The show’s tech has some of the most impressive elements of anything on Broadway now; notably the lightning that seamlessly transports us from the old house to the Netherworld and back. And there are humongous puppets that swallow actors.
The intricacies make sense - people go into Beetlejuice thinking that it is going to be otherworldly. So far, their reactions have been better than Ms. Butler expected. She told 1010 WINS, “The reaction has been in sane. From the first number the audience goes bananas. We have to stop the show because they’re screaming so much … they’re so involved and that’s been a really fun part of the process.”
What’s better than that?