Addams Family hosts a creepy, kooky reunion

By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

The 'Addams Family Mystery' cast

You know you’re in for a night of mischief when you’re ushered to a theater seat by someone who looks like Grandmama from the ’60s TV show "The Addams Family."

Inside, you’re taken to one of several tables in a small, intimate room without a performance platform for the actors. The entire room is the stage tonight.

This is The Gypsy Players’ production of "The Addams Family Mystery," an interactive dinner play running every Thursday through Nov. 18 at the Grand Vista Hotel, 999 Enchanted Valley Road, Simi Valley.

The Addams family—Uncle Fester, Gomez, Morticia, Grandmama and Wednesday—are together for a reunion and, similar to other family reunions, there are fights, temper tantrums and secrets clawing to get out. And just like an unwary cousin from out of town, you’re in the thick of "Things."

Wednesday has grown up since the days of the TV show and is now a teenager. She announces her plans to marry boyfriend Eddie Munster. The news upsets the family.

"Isn’t Eddie a werewolf?" they ask with dismay. Indifferent to her parents’ uneasiness, Wednesday is sent into a psychotic fog when it’s announced that Eddie’s been murdered.

Sixteen-year-old Mallory Jordan is eerily convincing as Wednesday. It’s hard to believe this junior at Simi Valley High School has had no other acting experience except for drama class. Mallory wants to be a fiction writer when she finishes school, and already has had two science fiction stories and three poems published.

Moorpark resident John Logue makes for a fun Fester and is much more engaging than the original character played on the TV show by Jackie Coogan. Logue, a child of the 1960s, wrote the play and infused it with references to that decade’s TV comedies.

If plays were rated, this one would be PG-13. It’s not bawdy but may not be suited for the pre-adolescent crowd. And besides, if your kids haven’t watched reruns of the 1960s TV shows, they’ll miss most of the jokes.

Don’t plan to come and be a couch potato. This is interactive theatre in which the audience is asked to laugh, sing and dance together. Audience members can even attend the play in costume. Two women at my table came dressed as cats. Candice Chung recommends wearing a costume. "You’ll get more into it," she says.

Tickets are $45 and include dinner, dessert, beverage and gratuity.

For more information, call the Gypsy Players at (661) 718-3968.