Beetlejuice the Musical is “not doing the movie on stage”
It's showtime for the team behind National Theatre's "Beetlejuice the Musical"
The ghost with the most has returned to heckle the living in a screen-to-stage musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s 1988 hit Beetlejuice. Featuring original music and lyrics by Aussie songsmith Eddie Perfect and a book by Scott Brown and Anthony King, Beetlejuice the Musical is the latest movie reimagining to slide into D.C.’s National Theater before shuffling off to Broadway.
While its creators are aware they have some scary big shoes to fill, they appear more thrilled than intimidated by the task. Not least Alex Brightman — who’s been down a similar road before as the Tony-nominated star of screen-to-stage success School of Rock — who will don the famous striped suit of the titular role.
“We are not doing the movie on stage,” says Brightman. “We are taking a source material and elevating it to its highest possible form, that you only can do this version on stage. And I think that is what people are not going to expect.”
What audiences will expect is a taste of the macabre vision and hilarious madness that helped make Burton’s film so memorable. Remaining true to the tale of a crass, cantankerous demon who’s employed by a sweet ghostly couple to rid their home of its new living residents, Beetlejuice the Musical is “kind of like a haunted house show,” says director Alex Timbers.
For Timbers, that meant engaging every trick of the stage trade, from puppetry and practical effects to what he describes as a “single-unit set that transforms, that feels magical.”
For composer Eddie Perfect, addressing the musical magic of the film’s indelible Danny Elfman score and calypso-flavored set-pieces meant digging deep into his bag of tricks to find this production’s own original sound.
“Beetlejuice is like a vessel for thousands of demons,” says Perfect. “And then things explode out of him. I thought the music needed to do that as well. The opening number alone has got a requiem followed by ska, followed by banjo folk, followed by death metal. The only musical style I didn’t manage to wedge into the show was Peking Opera.”
Perfect’s score promises several other surprises, including a quieter number that delves inside the mind of Lydia Deetz, portrayed by Sophia Anne Caruso.
In a departure from the film, Lydia, the ghoulish teenage daughter of the family the ghosts want out of their house, is as complicated a heroine as Beetlejuice is a villain. “She is a con man,” Caruso reveals. “They both are, and that’s part of why they work well together.”
As Brightman points out, “There is a hero and a villain in everyone in this story. Everybody in the show has demons, I just happen to be an actual one. But even demons have demons.”
Beetlejuice runs until November 18 at the National Theatre, 1321 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. Tickets are $54 to $114. Call 202-628-6161, or visit thenationaldc.org.
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