Actually, the reviews indicated that the show — with music by Andrew Lippa and a book by Jersey Boys collaborators Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice—was in decent shape, and had the elements of a hit. But the Sun-Times said some nips and tucks wouldn't hurt. Variety (which was encouraging and largely positive) said it was "Slickly and grandly designed, completely accessible, consistently amusing and in its own way a genuine tribute to old-fashioned Broadway musical entertainment," but also "overcrammed and underfocused...It's easy to miss a bit more edgy, existential perversity."

And the Tribune was more instructive still. "Someone needs to beat back some of the heavy organ notes, the focus-pulling numbers from peripheral characters, and the anonymous chorus from Les Miserables, and extricate the actual Addamses and make 'em pop theatrically with plenty of gags and tunes," wrote Chris Jones.

It was agreed that star Nathan Lane was performing on all cylinders — he always does — while co-stars Bebe Neuwirth and Jackie Hoffman, as Morticia and Grandmama, need more to do, and the straight family set to marry into to the creepy clan needs less stage time. New pads and pencils for everyone this Christmas!

***

The show was greeted on Dec. 6 with something of a communal yawn. It had its points, critics said, and a bit of snap, crackle and pop, and Spader was excellent, but Mamet brought nothing new or particularly incendiary to the topic. Reviewers found it thin, lacking tension and muddled, and found the second act unsatisfying. "David Mamet's Race has been outrun by a fast-moving culture," wrote one critic.

***

Arguably, the biggest news on Broadway this week did not take place on any stage, but on the street in full view of Times Square crowds. Police shot and killed Raymond Martinez, a 25-year-old rapper from the Bronx who was running a CD-hawking scam on Dec. 10, when he opened fire on police using a semiautomatic weapon. The incident occurred at 11 AM in the Marriott Marquis breezeway (the taxi drop-off area) near Broadway and 45th Street — an always busy area bustling with tourists and taxis.

Martinez — who was later found to have a cryptic message about desiring to challenge the police, and the business cards of several Virginia gun sellers on his person — managed to fire two rounds from his automatic weapon before it jammed. Police Sergeant Christopher Newsom was able to fire four shots, which hit Martinez. Bullets shattered store windows, and during the second round, bullets flew toward the Marriott Marquis box office, according to The New York Times. Another bullet, the Post reports, hit the window of the Broadway souvenir shop Broadway Baby. No passersby were injured. Martinez was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, where he later died.

***

The postponed Broadway revival of Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak's Godspell, which had been scheduled to begin previews at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in September 2008, is now aiming for a Broadway bow during the 2010-11 season, according to Variety.

A year ago, the postponed show was seen as an early casualty of the recession, which took hold early last fall. Daniel Goldstein, who had been scheduled to direct the earlier staging, will helm the upcoming production. No casting has been announced; "American Idol" finalist Diana DeGarmo and Gavin Creel had been scheduled to star in the 2008 mounting.

In other Broadway news, the Broadhurst Theatre will be the Broadway home for Lucy Prebble's Enron, the acclaimed theatrical account of a company's financial collapse. Previews will begin April 8, 2010, prior to an opening on April 27.

Inspired by the real-life financial scandal of 2001, Enron, which was commissioned by Headlong Theatre, premiered in summer 2009 at the Minerva Theatre Chichester, and then moved for a six-week run at the Royal Court Theatre in London, where it played through Nov. 8, 2009. The play will transfer to West End's Noel Coward Theatre in January 2010. Americans will populate the Broadway cast.

***

Under the heading of Not Letting the Grass Grow Beneath Their Feet, we find the Roundabout Theatre Company and actress Laurie Metcalf. The Roundabout had hoped to extend their first production at the newly redone Henry Miller's Theatre, but Bye Bye, Birdie was not liked by critics and will end its limited run in January. So the nonprofit, which has the lease on the Henry Miller's on 43rd Street, is renting it to the commercial producers of the new Dame Edna-Michael Feinstein comedy-music show All About Me, which was previously announced for Broadway's Golden Theatre.

Variety cited Roundabout leadership as saying that the company intends to use its new venue for its own productions as a source of rental income. "It's tough times. We really think aggressively about alternate means of raising money," Roundabout artistic director Todd Haimes told the trade paper.

	Laurie Metcalf

Meanwhile, Metcalf had expected to be employed throughout the season as the main star of the rotating Broadway revivals of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound. But critics and ticketbuyers had other plans, and that double bill closed quickly. (The latter actually never opened at all.)

So Metcalf has joined the cast of A Lie of the Mind, The New Group's upcoming revival of the Sam Shepard drama. (Shepard is meat and potatoes to a Chicago actress like Metcalf.) Ethan Hawke directs the Off-Broadway show which has set a Feb. 18, 2010 opening night. Also joining the troupe are Keith Carradine and original A Lie of the Mind cast member Karen Young.

***

Elsewhere Off-Broadway, Kathleen Chalfant joined Rosemarie DeWitt in the cast of MCC Theater's upcoming Off-Broadway presentation of Beth Henley's Family Week. Jonathan Demme directs.

The Henley drama-comedy, a five-character work about a family visiting an inmate at a "treatment center," played Off-Broadway in 2000, but was not well-received and closely quickly. No doubt the combination of Demme and DeWitt — director and star of "Rachel Getting Married," was reason enough to bring it back. Previews begin April 7, 2010, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre toward an April 26 opening night. The run is scheduled through May 23.