Musical Sunday!
Sep. 19th, 2010 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalYaaaay!! Today we're going to talk about my newest musical obsession and the source of my new username - Next to Normal!
I am super excited that it's on tour now - starring OBC member Alice Ripley ("She's fierce! Hey, that's the first time I ever said the word fierce... that's the second." /[title of show]), and it's coming to DC! ... a year from now. But still!
I bought the soundtrack as soon as I came home from New York (where I didn't get to see it on Broadway), and fell in love with it pretty much immediately. The score is very rock-influenced, the actors' voices are amazing, the characters are all so relatable, the humor is sarcastic and snarky, and the show is a fascinating exploration of mental illness, grief, and family.
It's actually kind of hard to describe without spoiling the two plot twists in the first act. I've never seen the show, so I'm not really sure how shocking they're supposed to be (you can figure it all out from the soundtrack, which is what I did). But I'm obviously going to need multiple posts to talk about it - I kind of want to include every single song in the show - so I will talk about the first twist (it's impossible not to, since it's the whole premise of the show) in this post, and then for next week's post, I'll talk about the other one.
Next to Normal is the story of the Goodman family - Dan and Diana, and their children Natalie and Gabriel. Here they are in the show's opening number:
I love this messy picture of family life - Diana is determined to hold her family together, even as they're all struggling not to fall apart. The moment when I decided I adored her character? "We're the perfect loving family. If they say we're not, then fuck 'em!" I love her defiance. :) But I also understand Dan's weariness, "living on a latte and a prayer." It's interesting to note that they both feel responsible for keeping it all together, but they also both feel alone in that endeavor.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I strongly identify with Natalie, the neurotic, piano-playing genius (heh). She's working her ass off in school, pushing herself beyond all reasonable limits, because she feels like she has something to prove. The dialogue is cut out of the soundtrack version, but Natalie's "It's great, everything's great" is the prelude to a litany of homework assignments she still has to finish - at 4 am. I love her line in this song: "'Cause some days I think I'm dying, but I'm really only trying to get through." I actually thought about using that quote in my journal layout, but it seemed like too much of a downer, lol.
The "It only hurts when I..." section, I think, really starts to reveal the theme of the show - everyone in the family is suffering from some kind of depression or anxiety. Sometimes life hurts, and it takes all your effort just trying your best to get by. And I love Diana and Natalie saying, "With a smile so white and winning all the way," because it points out how much you're expected to put up a front and smile, no matter how bad you feel, just so you don't bring other people down.
And then we come to the first twist - in a manic lunch-making incident that leaves the kitchen covered in sandwiches, we learn that Diana's condition is actually pretty serious. In fact, she's a "bipolar depressive with delusional episodes," and has been in treatment for the last sixteen years.
I love the spoken dialogue bits of this song where they go through the side effects of Diana's various treatments (Alice Ripley's delivery on some of those lines is simply inspired), and then the rather chilling conclusion: "I don't feel like myself. I mean, I don't feel anything." "Patient stable."
The song also introduces the contrast between Diana, "the one who has treatments," and Dan, the "one who just lives with the pain." I think it's easy for them to fall into the stereotypes of the hysterical woman and the stoic man - and, in fact, in a later song, Diana actually refers to Dan as "so steadfast and stolid, and stoic and solid." And yet, at the same time, the show is subverting that by showing us that Dan is struggling with his own depression, which he's never revealed to Diana, making his "I'm hurting, too" sound patronizing to her. Diana's illness has been a strain on their marriage, but this feeling of "I have to be the sane one" that Dan clings to also means that they're completely unable to understand each other, and they both feel terribly alone. But at the end of the show, when Diana leaves, Dan finally decides to give therapy a try for himself.
(This is me somewhat projecting, since I haven't seen enough of the show to know for sure, but I also wonder if part of Dan's reluctance to seek treatment is the same as mine - because you look at someone like Diana and think, "My problems aren't nearly that bad, I should be able to handle this on my own." I spent years thinking maybe I was depressed, but I'd look at my friends who were in therapy - friends who'd been raped or had eating disorders or whose depression was way more debilitating - and I didn't see how my problems could possibly compare. They had problems; I was just being weak and whiny, and I told myself to just get over it.)
Anyway, throughout the course of the first act, we see Diana attempt a series of treatments - first, the various medications from the song, which she ends up flushing down the toilet because of the way they make her feel:
Then she tries hypnosis, and finally, after a suicide attempt that lands her in the hospital, her doctor suggests electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which erases nineteen years of her memory. Then the second act is about the family's efforts to help Diana recover her memories and confront the one memory that has kept Diana trapped in her delusions for so long.
Aaaaand I will leave it there, and you have to come back next week if you want to find out more. :)
I am super excited that it's on tour now - starring OBC member Alice Ripley ("She's fierce! Hey, that's the first time I ever said the word fierce... that's the second." /[title of show]), and it's coming to DC! ... a year from now. But still!
I bought the soundtrack as soon as I came home from New York (where I didn't get to see it on Broadway), and fell in love with it pretty much immediately. The score is very rock-influenced, the actors' voices are amazing, the characters are all so relatable, the humor is sarcastic and snarky, and the show is a fascinating exploration of mental illness, grief, and family.
It's actually kind of hard to describe without spoiling the two plot twists in the first act. I've never seen the show, so I'm not really sure how shocking they're supposed to be (you can figure it all out from the soundtrack, which is what I did). But I'm obviously going to need multiple posts to talk about it - I kind of want to include every single song in the show - so I will talk about the first twist (it's impossible not to, since it's the whole premise of the show) in this post, and then for next week's post, I'll talk about the other one.
Next to Normal is the story of the Goodman family - Dan and Diana, and their children Natalie and Gabriel. Here they are in the show's opening number:
I love this messy picture of family life - Diana is determined to hold her family together, even as they're all struggling not to fall apart. The moment when I decided I adored her character? "We're the perfect loving family. If they say we're not, then fuck 'em!" I love her defiance. :) But I also understand Dan's weariness, "living on a latte and a prayer." It's interesting to note that they both feel responsible for keeping it all together, but they also both feel alone in that endeavor.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I strongly identify with Natalie, the neurotic, piano-playing genius (heh). She's working her ass off in school, pushing herself beyond all reasonable limits, because she feels like she has something to prove. The dialogue is cut out of the soundtrack version, but Natalie's "It's great, everything's great" is the prelude to a litany of homework assignments she still has to finish - at 4 am. I love her line in this song: "'Cause some days I think I'm dying, but I'm really only trying to get through." I actually thought about using that quote in my journal layout, but it seemed like too much of a downer, lol.
The "It only hurts when I..." section, I think, really starts to reveal the theme of the show - everyone in the family is suffering from some kind of depression or anxiety. Sometimes life hurts, and it takes all your effort just trying your best to get by. And I love Diana and Natalie saying, "With a smile so white and winning all the way," because it points out how much you're expected to put up a front and smile, no matter how bad you feel, just so you don't bring other people down.
And then we come to the first twist - in a manic lunch-making incident that leaves the kitchen covered in sandwiches, we learn that Diana's condition is actually pretty serious. In fact, she's a "bipolar depressive with delusional episodes," and has been in treatment for the last sixteen years.
I love the spoken dialogue bits of this song where they go through the side effects of Diana's various treatments (Alice Ripley's delivery on some of those lines is simply inspired), and then the rather chilling conclusion: "I don't feel like myself. I mean, I don't feel anything." "Patient stable."
The song also introduces the contrast between Diana, "the one who has treatments," and Dan, the "one who just lives with the pain." I think it's easy for them to fall into the stereotypes of the hysterical woman and the stoic man - and, in fact, in a later song, Diana actually refers to Dan as "so steadfast and stolid, and stoic and solid." And yet, at the same time, the show is subverting that by showing us that Dan is struggling with his own depression, which he's never revealed to Diana, making his "I'm hurting, too" sound patronizing to her. Diana's illness has been a strain on their marriage, but this feeling of "I have to be the sane one" that Dan clings to also means that they're completely unable to understand each other, and they both feel terribly alone. But at the end of the show, when Diana leaves, Dan finally decides to give therapy a try for himself.
(This is me somewhat projecting, since I haven't seen enough of the show to know for sure, but I also wonder if part of Dan's reluctance to seek treatment is the same as mine - because you look at someone like Diana and think, "My problems aren't nearly that bad, I should be able to handle this on my own." I spent years thinking maybe I was depressed, but I'd look at my friends who were in therapy - friends who'd been raped or had eating disorders or whose depression was way more debilitating - and I didn't see how my problems could possibly compare. They had problems; I was just being weak and whiny, and I told myself to just get over it.)
Anyway, throughout the course of the first act, we see Diana attempt a series of treatments - first, the various medications from the song, which she ends up flushing down the toilet because of the way they make her feel:
Then she tries hypnosis, and finally, after a suicide attempt that lands her in the hospital, her doctor suggests electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which erases nineteen years of her memory. Then the second act is about the family's efforts to help Diana recover her memories and confront the one memory that has kept Diana trapped in her delusions for so long.
Aaaaand I will leave it there, and you have to come back next week if you want to find out more. :)
Spoilers..
Date: Sep. 27th, 2010 05:02 pm (UTC)A major plot twist...
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
her son is dealt with in interesting manner on state. We are so fully in Diana's pov that we don't realize at first that her son is dead. Or even more shocking that he died as a baby - due to a medical mistake - which is a heavy theme in the show. Because on stage we see him as a boy of 18 or 20, can't remember which. She's basically raised him in her head as if he were with her all this time.
He's real to her, but a ghost to everyone else.
They don't see him, but his presence is felt and is disruptive to their lives. So the show becomes in an odd way - a psychological ghost story - where Diana in order to cope with her grief (or is her illness' way of coping with it - this is never clarified) - brings her idealized image of her son to life. The fact that he is obviously not real - causes a dissonance that eats away at the family.
The show is absolutely amazing on stage. How it is staged, the minimalist set, the use of light, and
direction. Not a show you can forget. It still haunts me and I saw it way back in May. Amazing.
It's still playing in NYC by the way...and still getting amazing reviews (even though the leads have been recast - with a husband and wife acting team.)
Re: Spoilers..
Date: Sep. 27th, 2010 05:02 pm (UTC)Re: Spoilers..
Date: Sep. 27th, 2010 06:01 pm (UTC)Yes, I love that dissonance - and I love the way it's done, with Gabe being a physical character, that it's like Diana's thoughts alone give him life. Stories about reality through perception intrigue me. :) They could've shown that he impacted the family without him having a physical presence on stage, but it's so much more powerful if he's standing there and they can't see him, but they feel the impact.
I am kind of torn, because I want to see Alice Ripley (she's in the national tour, which is coming here), but I really loved Marin Mazzie in Ragtime, and it'd be cool to see her perform with her husband. Aaaah, decisions!