Out of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway rock musical comes an experimental immersive 60-minute experience, an audacious attempt to combine art installation with cinema with concert with theatre.
When it first hit Off-Broadway back in 2009, the original Next to Normal raised eyebrows. Set to book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt, it tells the story of a woman suffering from bipolar disorder; it covers her attempts to overcome it, her relationship with her husband and children, the doctors she sees, and the treatments she tries. All this, with great tunes and a dry sense of humour. The show was a spectacular success, running until 2011 and triggering a number of international productions, it won a heap of awards including a Tony Award for Alice Ripley who played protagonist Diana Goodman.
Fast forward thirteen years and in the post-pandemic world of multiple troubles our mental health is more precarious than ever. Rates of anxiety and depression are soaring and more people, including children, are on medication. According to Simon Pittman, British director of the production, painstaking care has been taken to treat the issue with sensitivity. The aim, he says, is to reduce the stigma of mental health rather than dictate any one response to it.
With the audience dotted about around the action, surrounded by spectacular digital projections, this Next to Normal revival breaks up the narrative and compresses everything into a digestible hour. The talented Ms. Ripley, now in her late 50s, travels from America to reprise her role. In a piece where fiction and reality entwine, she breezes even-handedly through it; her age bringing resonance to persistent preconceptions of what a mother should be, and the alleged consequences should she be not.
Around her, a cast of needy family members whirl: well-meaning but patronising husband Dan (Andy Señor Jr.), clingy yet adorable son Gabe (Lewis Edgar), sullen, strong daughter Nathalie (Jade Lauren) and her love interest, the attentive stoner Henry (Eloi Gómez). Also dominent in Diana’s life is Doctor Madden (Adam Pascal), slick psychiatrist slash rock star who joins us over Zoom.
The new Next to Normal is a different beast from the original. It is bigger but shorter, more spectacular but less glamorous. Its multisensory approach inevitably requires that parts of the plot and character dimenson be compromised. Sound reverberates in the cavernous space and following the lyrics can require aural gymnastics. Subtitles perched high on the wall that could have helped were sometimes out of sync. But it is early days in the piece, and there are retains and even gains from this explosion of imperfection: the art (Tatiana Halbach, Søren Christensen) is fabulous, while disorientating it never distracts, and enhances the emotional energy of the performances.
