Beetlejuice at the Eccles

Believe it or not I have never seen the movie Beetlejuice (the people I sit by at the Eccles Theater were incredulous when I mentioned this) so I didn't really know what to expect when I saw the musical adaptation last night.  It ended up being a lot of fun and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Beetlejuice (Andrew Kober) is a lonely demon who is tired of being invisible but in order to be seen he needs someone who is alive to say his name three times.  He enlists the help of Barbara and Adam Maitland (Britney Coleman and Will Burton, respectively), a recently deceased but very mild-mannered couple, and convinces them to haunt their former house which is now owned by Charles Deetz (Jesse Sharp) and his daughter Lydia (Isabella Esler).  She is obsessed with death because she is still mourning the loss of her mother and this enables her to see the Maitlands and Beetlejuice.  Chaos ensues as Lydia uses Beetlejuice and the Maitlands to stop her father from replacing her mother with her life coach Delia (Kate Marilly) and to find her mother in the Netherworld while Beetlejuice uses her to bring him to life.  As with many musicals that are adapted from popular movies, most of the songs (except for"Dead Mom" and "Home" which are my favorites from the show) are not particularly memorable but the performances more than make up for this.  Kober acts as a sort of Master of Ceremonies and breaks the fourth wall with lots of off-color but humorous asides to the audience.  His renditions of "The Whole 'Being Dead' Thing," and its many reprises, "Fright of Their Lives," "Say My Name," and "That Beautiful Sound" are incredibly frenetic and highly entertaining with an ensemble backing him up as a marching band and cheerleaders, a gospel choir, cloned versions of himself, and large skeleton puppets.  Marilly brings a lot of comedy and physicality to "No Reason" and both Coleman and Burton are the perfect foils to Kober's mania in "Fright of Their Lives" and "Say My Name."  However, the star of the show, in my opinion, is Esler.  Her version of "Dead Mom" is incredibly moving as Lydia asks her mother to help her through her grief.  I think this show loses a bit of focus and momentum in the second act but the song "Home" is such a beautiful turning point because Lydia realizes that her mother is dead but that there are people in her life who love her and Esler just about blows the roof off the Eccles Theater singing it.  I loved all of the special effects, especially how falling into the Netherworld is depicted, the amazing set featuring a house that is transformed multiple times, and the iconic Beetlejuice striped suit (which I saw many people in the audience wearing).  I enjoyed this so much more than I expected and I am sure fans of the movie will love it (although the people around me told me that it differed quite a bit from the source material but in a good way).  It runs at the Eccles Theater through Sunday August 13 (go here for tickets).