If there was ever a need to put in an emergency call for a team of ghostbusters, this newest offering at Hartford’s Center for the Performing Arts at the Bushnell is surely the occasion. What if you bought a new home, experienced an untimely death and were trapped as ghosts there for an eternity? To eliminate the next unsuspecting occupants from moving in on your territory, how might you cope? You might be forced to take drastic measures. Let the trusty resources in “Beetlejuice”, with music and lyrics by Eddie Perfect and book by Scott Brown and Anthony King, provide some possible solutions until Sunday, June 2.
Think about celebrating Halloween in May. “Beetlejuice The Musical” literally starts with a huge bang as Justin Collette’s Beetlejuice commands center stage, a glorious position he never relinquishes for one cotton pickin’ moment. With fiendish energy and devilish style, he thrusts his wishes on everyone in his realm, allowing no one to refuse his entreaties or fail to follow his power and authority. The first victims to feel his dictatorship are the unsuspecting couple Barbara (Megan McGinnis) and her husband Adam (Will Burton) who accidentally die after purchasing their dream home where Beetlejuice resides.
Rather reluctantly Barbara and Adam fall under Beetlejuice’s convincing spell and agree to provide a less than welcoming floor mat to the newest residents of the quite creepy residence when Charles (Jesse Sharp), his distraught teenage daughter Lydia (Isabella Esler) who has just lost her mother and Charles’ s employee and new mistress Delia (Sarah Litzsinger) establish residency. This unhappy trio is coping with a lot of issues and now Beetlejuice is on the scene causing havoc and a new level of chaos.
Will Beetlejuice’s diabolical plot work? Can Lydia find comfort from her mother’s loss? Are Barbara and Adam destined to roam the Netherworld forever? Can Beetlejuice get his greatest desire accomplished? With spooky set design by David Korins, zany costumes by William Ivey Long, energetic choreography by Connor Gallagher and sci-fi inspired direction by Alex Timbers, “Beetlejuice” is a wild, wacky, sexually stimulating leap into a spooky afterlife.
For tickets ($48 and up), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at bushnell.org. Performances are tonight at 7:30 p.m., Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Jump feet first into a world of the afterlife with a conniving specter as your not- so- reliable guide and discover all the unexpected and amusing results of this unpredictable adventure. Hold on to your mop of green hair as you leap and give thanks to Tim Burton for his imaginative and memorable film.