ajhlovestheatre

NEXT TO NORMAL

Music by Tom Kitt

Book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey

Directed by Michael Longhurst

Donmar Warehouse, London – until 7 October 2023

https://www.donmarwarehouse.com

It has taken fourteen years for Next To Normal to reach the UK, despite winning several 2009 Tony Awards (including Best Score, although not Best Musical, that honour going to the Broadway version of Billy Elliot), and certain songs becoming staples in cabaret and audition rooms. Watching Michael Longhurst’s enthralling Donmar production, you can sort-of see why this didn’t traverse the Atlantic with the same speed as, say, Memphis or The Book of Mormon or Moulin Rouge! even as one marvels at its audacity and ambition (it’s also one of only a small number of musicals to win the Pulitzer Prize). For one thing, it’s a harrowing, if sometimes simplistic, look at mental health, specifically bipolar disorder, that carries enough trigger warnings to fill a whole sheet of A4.

For another, it requires a leading lady, in the role of stricken suburban housewife Diana Goodman, who can belt like a diva but with the acting gravitas of a tragedian, a gift for sardonic comedy also being a plus. It’s a big ask -certainly one of the most demanding female leads in modern musical theatre- that could potentially send somebody’s career into the stratosphere (the role’s originator Alice Ripley won every award going in NYC) but also runs the risk of exposing any faultlines in their technique and stamina. In all honesty, several of the other leading parts in Kitt and Yorkey’s angst-tastic bangerfest aren’t far behind her in terms of vocal and dramatic demands, but Diana has an emotional arc that can’t be easy to replicate night after night. When I saw Next To Normal on Broadway, Ripley’s acting was strong but she sounded so vocally exhausted that one wondered if she was going to make it to the end of the show.

Longhurst has struck gold for this London premiere, casting Broadway star Caissie Levy (previously seen here as the original Molly in the Ghost musical, and leading the last big West End revival of Hair) who gives the sort of career-redefining performance that reputations are built upon. We all knew she was a vocal powerhouse (she was the first stage Elsa in Disney’s Frozen: her skyscraping take on “Let It Go” is iconic) and her singing doesn’t disappoint, a soaring clarion that sounds as though it’s being pulled from her very soul, fusing rock, blues and a melting sweetness with moments of breathtaking power. Dramatically, she’s equally devastating, exploring every colour in Diana’s troubled life, while also making her intensely likeable. She’s raw, witty, haunted, fragile yet implacable, capturing with painful precision the manic vitality then the bone-weary blankness, the jagged catapulting between despair, euphoria and terror that can be part of a bipolar person’s existence. She also finds a warmth in Diana I haven’t seen before; it’s almost impossible to tear your eyes away from her.

Diana’s husband Dan Goodman (and the name is no mere coincidence -“good man”- any more than are the names of her psychologists, Dr Madden and Dr Fine – both played by a dynamic, swaggering then sensitive Trevor Dion Nicholas) isn’t so much acted as embodied by Jamie Parker, who matches Levy in emotional commitment and blazingly fine technique. He draws an unforgettable portrait of a human driven to limits of himself that he didn’t even know existed, sinews, veins and muscles straining as he tries to keep his family together. If there are moments where Parker’s singing also seems a little strained, that entirely works for a man all too aware that he and the people he loves are constantly on the brink of the abyss. These Goodmans read as younger than in the original version, which adds to the tragic urgency of their plight.

There’s stunning work too from Eleanor Worthington-Cox and Jack Wolfe as the Goodman’s teenage children. Worthington-Cox, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Levy, conveys all of Natalie’s prodigious intelligence (“my daughter, though a genius, is a freak”) and the maturity she unwillingly embraces due to her mother’s condition, also her isolation and awkwardness; it’s a profoundly accomplished performance. There’s also a subtle hint that Natalie carries around a fear that she may be headed in the same direction as the mother who will always be more in thrall to her sibling than to her.

If Wolfe has less to work with as Gabe, there’s a very good reason why he’s less defined as a character (no spoilers here). On Broadway, Aaron Tveit played him as a sunny, shiny, all-American jock but Wolfe delivers something altogether more ambiguous and intriguing, a manipulative, wry, needy cross between an angel and an emo rock star. Jack Ofrecio is delightful as the stoner kid who falls for Natalie and might just be her lifeline out of dysfunction.

Tom Kitt’s tuneful, galvanising rock music is reminiscent at times of the equally bleak but more user-friendly Rent and the all-out nihilistic fervour of The Who’s Tommy. It’s also infused with sections of Brecht and Weill-adjacent spikiness, and an aching, shimmering loveliness during more tender moments. Chief among these is the bittersweet ballad “I Miss The Mountains”, given a heart-catching rendition here by Levy, Brian Yorkey’s lyrics conveying with a piercing accuracy what’s lost as well as gained by the use of medication in the treatment of mental illness.

The structure of the score is probably closer to modern opera than a conventional musical, with the use of recitative and snippets of melody and lightning fast changes of tones sitting alongside complete numbers. There are a couple of moments where the flash and crowd pleasing bombast come close to trivialising the subject matter, and Yorkey’s sometimes overwrought lyrics don’t help: “I’m no sociopath, I’m no Sylvia Plath….I’m no princess of pain”. The universal attitude to mental health has, thank goodness, evolved considerably since the beginning of this century when Feeling Electric (the original title) was being workshopped and indeed since Next To Normal opened on Broadway, and inevitably the show occasionally feels dated as a result. Ultimately though, it remains deeply moving, refreshingly bold, and the score, the characters and many sequences in Longhurst’s staging linger long in the memory.

Rock in a small theatre can be tricky -have the volume too low and the music lacks balls, have it too high and you risk inflicting actual physical discomfort upon your audience- but sound designer Tony Gayle has pretty much got it right here. The score thrills as it should but it’s possible to really enjoy the harmonies, the glorious voices and Nigel Lilley and Alessandra Davison’s band, arranged on the upper level of Chloe Lamford’s pristine house set like a series of floating musical ghosts. This production wisely retains Michael Starobin and Kitt’s Tony-winning orchestrations: there’s a particular melancholic magic to the sound of a rock band augmented by classical strings.

Next To Normal isn’t flawless (although this cast and production pretty much are) but it’s likely to haunt you after seeing it for much longer than many more conventional tuners, and the courage to tackle this sort of subject matter in a musical, and the unwillingness to tie it all up in a neat, pretty bow is pretty remarkable. A cathartic triumph, likely to be talked about for years to come. Upset has seldom been so uplifting; take tissues.