"The Addams Family" may be creepy and kooky, but they're also lighting up the stage on the Great White Way. NY1's Roma Torre filed the following review.

"The Addams Family" is stamped into our pop culture consciousness; and trying to reproduce the subtle subversions of the Charles Addams comic is an obvious challenge. The Addamses are already a hybrid, genetically altered through TV and film. So, don't be surprised if those creepy singing characters at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre aren't quite as familiar as you'd expect. In fact, the name that truly dominates this show is Nathan Lane and fans of the musical comedy star are likely to be the show's most satisfied customers.

Lane is Gomez Addams, Bebe Neuwirth is Morticia. Everyone's there: Pugsley and Wednesday; Uncle Fester, Grandma, and butler Lurch. Even Cousin Itt and Thing make brief appearances. Credit the show's original directors/designers, Phelim McDermott & Julian Crouch for at least making everything look right.

But in many ways, the show feels wrong. Broadway's instinctive need to entertain seems at odds with the cartoon's low key style. In fact, the last thing you'd expect the tango loving Morticia and Gomez to do is yuk it up for laughs. But that's precisely what's going on for the most part.

Andrew Lippa's eclectic score is uneven, featuring a few winning numbers playing on the conceit that normal values are reversed with the Addams' preferring dead things and gloom. But even that's inconsistent as the story inexplicably turns sentimental in spots.

Bookwriters Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice of "Jersey Boys" fame have come up with a plot right out of "La Cage Aux Folles." They've aged daughter Wednesday giving her a boyfriend with conservative parents who the kids invite over for dinner, expecting the Addams' to straighten their act. Besides being unoriginal it's uncompelling to boot.

The belting Krysta Rodriguez as Wednesday is quite a talent even if she seems to be part of a different show. Kevin Chamberlin, a dead ringer for TV's Jackie Coogan (pardon the pun) has a sweet charm as Uncle Fester. Jackie Hoffman makes an outrageously kookie grandma. And Bebe Neuwirth looks amazing, though she's not given enough to do.

Given so many disparate elements it's more of a variety show hosted by the incomparable Nathan Lane, tailored to his brand of wisecracking humor. And he does indeed nail every line, even the unfunny ones.

It's no big secret that veteran director Jerry Zaks took over at some point and he's succeeded in turning "The Addams Family" into an ordinary Broadway musical. There's one big problem with that, since the Addamses are supposed to be anything but ordinary.