Beetlejuice (Broadway) NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (1,835)
See it if If you liked the movie, you will adore this musical. I saw it and had a blast. A treat for your eyes and your ears.
Don't see it if It's way over the top in all ways. Might now be your cup of tea. But I'd give it a chance anyway
See it if You want to be blown away and surprised by special effects and talent. The cast has an infectious energy and the show is very entertaining.
Don't see it if You are a purist and are expecting the show to follow the movie 100%.
See it if you loved the movie, and want to have fun.
Don't see it if you just want to see a plain musical with just music music.
See it if You enjoy excellent musical of Tim Burton's classic Beetlejuice. Punches of humor and excellent singing and staging. Loved it. Go see it.
Don't see it if You do not like Beetlejuice movie and the theme and would prefer a serious play.
See it if You liked the movie, if you like off-the-wall humor, something totally outrageous
Don't see it if If you can't suspend belief for 2 hours, if you didn't like the movie Read more
See it if You want to see an amazing musical with great singing and acting.
Don't see it if You are easily offended by some harsh language or don't like the plot form the movie.
See it if You like the movie or even if you haven’t seen the movie. I had never seen it but loved this anyway and decided to finally see it!
Don't see it if You don’t like the movie, jokes about death or musicals that are different and not classical.
See it if you love a hilarious interpretation of a great movie. The book is hilarious, the staging is non-stop, and it looks great, to boot.
Don't see it if you expect a scene-by-scene recreation of the movie. There are several liberties taken with the story, but they all work very well.
Critic Reviews (49)
"It's an aggressive, jack-in-the-box package loaded with loud music, blaring colors, distorted angles, blinder cues, and frat-house jokes...’Beetlejuice’ keeps raising its voice without ever making much of an impression, largely because its creators have been unable to...make one care about its six principals...It substitutes crassness for real humor and its desire to please is so insistent that it quickly becomes grating....A fun house with nothing shoring it up; its attractions provide scant amusement.”
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"Brightman busts a gut as the title character in his unrelenting, used car-salesman effort to sell, sell, sell the show...But for all his efforts, Beetlejuice only occasionally hovers a couple of feet above the ground before it comes crashing back down under its own weight...No one, including director Alex Timbers, has been able to figure out how to bring the dead to life. 'Beetlejuice' the musical is in need of an exorcism."
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"Brightman is so good at what he does that bookwriters Brown and King were wise to adjust their script from the one Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson carpentered so that Beetlejuice, wearing his frayed black-and-white striped outfit doesn’t make a late entrance to the shenanigans...'Beetlejuice' becomes a hodge-podge of events and numbers, some amusing, some not so amusing...Alex Timbers directs 'Beetlejuice,' and lives up to his (sometimes overrated) reputation. "
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"A very enjoyable, very self-aware, very slick, very tuneful, very constructed-to-please-the-crowds new Broadway musical...All of it builds to a perfectly, wonderfully, showbizzy good time...It’s those big performances that work best here — Jill Abramovitz, wonderfully ridiculous in a bit part as an investor’s vacant wife, is a standout — because the whole show is so big."
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"For whatever inexplicable reason, it turns out that Lydia can actually see Beetlejuice - even though she's not dead - they become temporary partners in mayhem, trying to exact revenge of Charles and Lydia, while also gaining what they really, truly want. Those objectives give the show whatever heart it possesses, and it might beat more steadily if Timbers and company let the show come to a simmer now and then, rather than keep it at a constant boil."
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"Against considerable odds, the musical manages to surmount most of the hurdles it faces, even if, like that nasty-funny ghost at its center, for many it may ultimately overstay its welcome...The musical is considerably funnier than the movie...The director, the prolific Alex Timbers, might have profitably taken an editor’s pen to the cumbersome gyrations of the plot...Kritzer and Brightman aside, the performers are not given much high-fiber comic material."
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"This theme park-type show is visually a spectacle with a set that does all sort of tricks and changes, but as the adage goes, you can't go home singing the scenery. And the score by Australian composer/performer Eddie Perfect (whose only other American score has been 'King Kong the Musical') is eminently forgettable. In the title role, Alex Brightman, who was charismatic in a similar role in 'The School of Rock,' is so over-the top that he becomes tiresome very quickly."
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“Under the resourceful direction of Timbers, the principals form a sublime ensemble...They create maximal mayhem...There are moments when relentless exuberance becomes monotonous and it's hard not to ponder all that doesn't add up in the story. Those moments are relatively few and when they occur, the eclectic musical score, the visual humor, and the cast's hijinks soon reassert themselves, distracting us once again from our disbelief."
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