After a bunch of peppy up-tempo numbers, you just know there is going to be at least one ballad somewhere in “The Griswolds’ Broadway Vacation,” the new musical with Broadway aspirations premiering at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre. It arrives in the second act: “Doofus,” a tender ode from a much put-upon wife to her eternal screw-up of a husband.
The song encapsulates some of what is amiss with this oddly retro, very busy and fitfully amusing show, inspired by the National Lampoon film comedies of the 1980s and 1990s about a Chicago family’s holiday misadventures. Whether the cinematic Griswolds are traveling to a California amusement park, hitting Las Vegas or hosting relatives at home for Christmas, the occasions invariably turn into nightmarish disasters caused by a shlemiel dad’s dimwit decisions.
The five features in the franchise (that doesn’t count a made-for-tv sixth outing) took in more than $300 million at