Next to Normal

This is a hard rock musical hitting raw emotions, so different from the light-hearted and feel good Sound of Music type of musical.  The staging included a framed, 2 story quadrant so that all four major characters could sing their frustrations in their own rooms, yet to the audience, sang together as a chorus.

It takes place in modern times and Alice Ripley plays Diana, a mother who is having a nervous breakdown. It starts as she gets her family ready for the start of the day.  Her favorite child, her teenage son Gabe, is lighthearted, playful and loving.  Her teenage daughter, Natalie, is focused on her musical studies in almost a geeky way and she sees herself as the “invisible girl” because no one pays attention to her.  As the morning progresses, Diana begins to flip out as the stress of the morning begins to overcome her.  She tries to make sandwiches out of a whole loaf of bread, laying them on the table, on the chairs and across the floor.  Her husband and children look on, horrified.

Her husband Dan is such a sad character because he loves his wife so much and watches helplessly as she progresses further into a nervous breakdown.  He stands by her, but he has to make the difficult decision on her treatments, which includes shock therapy.  After months of psychotherapy and shock treatments, she resumes her life to near normalcy, but she is still fighting her demons.  Pills are also part of her treatment, which deaden her feelings.  She sings, “I miss the mountains, I miss my life, I even miss the pain because I feel nothing” or “You don’t know when you die when living like this”.

It isn’t until later in the play that we discover Gabe is actually the demon she is trying to overcome.  He died as a baby and she has never overcome that loss.  She sees him as he grows up, but to become normal again, she has to convince herself that what she sees is not real.  After taking her medication regularly, she does not see her son or if she does, she can tell that he is not real.  But because she hates how she feels when she takes the pills, she stops.  Then she begins to see her son more vividly than ever.  She tries to send her son away so that she can recover and Gabe pleads with her not to let him go.  That was a heart-wrenching scene.  Yikes…tears.  But she remains strong and reluctantly, sends him away.

Eventually, she leaves her husband and daughter so that she can concentrate on getting better.  Life goes on and they seem to get better, accepting the situation.  Maybe later when the time is right, they will be all together again.  In the last scene, Dan sees Gabe and apparently he has always seen his dead son.  They sing a painful duet as Gabe pleads to stay and Dan reluctantly acquiesces.  He knows it isn’t right, but he doesn’t want to send him away. 

I love performances that can pull emotions from the audience as they empathize with the characters.  The mother who struggles to regain her sanity, a daughter who seeks validation wanting to mean something to someone else, a father who wants to bear the pain for those he loves and even the dead son who doesn’t want to be forgotten.  My gosh, I was tapping my toes while brushing aside a tear.  For me, this heart-wrenching, hard rocking musical passed our test of, Yes, we would see this again.  For me, I’ve learned that everyone has difficulties, but over time troubles end and life goes on.  Yes, other troubles can be on the horizon, but we’ve been made stronger by those experiences.