NEXT TO NORMAL - ADC THEATRE
There is nothing normal about ‘Next to Normal’. This Broadway musical won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2010 and it is no ‘Sound of Music’. That said there is a ton of music in the show: over 35 numbers in a ‘rock musical’ style which also incorporates soaring ballads, complex duets, trios and quartets. Tough stuff. Also far from normal is the subject matter of this show with music by Tom Kitt and lyrics by Brian Yorkey.
The theme is the rapid decline in mental health of Diana, a wife and mother suffering (badly) from depression, bi-polar and hallucinatory episodes. The musical play pulls no punches and at times the rawness of her suffering is almost too hard to watch. We learn that Diana has a rebellious teenage daughter Natalie, and once had a baby boy, Gabe. Plot spoiler coming; the infant died aged eight months and Diana has never stopped grieving. We see her trying to cope with a supportive but long-suffering husband Dan and a medical profession that seems to be running out of cures. Her psychiatrist has the suitable name of Dr Madden (who is replaced by a more caring Dr Fine). Completing the sextet of characters is Henry, a would-be boyfriend for Natalie who is drawn into a family on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
Though long dead, Gabe, who would have been a young man, comes to haunt Diana as a rather malevolent spirit who just won’t let go. There are very few moments of light in this bleak household, rather ever darkening shade of grey. There is one song that made me smile: a pastiche of My Favourite Things which include her favourite pills. But moments of levity were very few and far between.
The Pied Pipers cast were drawn from what is now an unfathomable well of talent in Cambridge. Some benevolent fairy clearly has cast a spell on this city and brought in the most amazing music theatre performers (and unpaid at that!). Leading the ensemble was Vikki Jones as the crumbling mum. Her performance was one of immense power, deep tragedy and she has a voice that can belt with the biggest or sing as sweetly as a nightjar. She was supported by ever-wonderful Steve Nicholson, as the desperate Dan, trying to hold his family together but powerless in the onslaught of mental illness, medical mayhem and teenage tantrum. He cast a suitably pathetic figure, a victim, like Diana, of unresolve trauma. And he has a great voice.
Elin Gregory was spot on as teeny Natalie aware of her mother’s neglect and obsession with an invisible sibling. Her tricky romance with the boy Henry, was delivered with the right combination of edgy insecurity and steely determination. Excellent too was Michael Broom as the two doctors. In the former he was outstanding as the shrink turned monster as seen in Diana’s brain (it was perhaps the most dramatic moment in the play). He also caught perfectly the dilemma of a medical ‘expert’ who has run out of road; mental illness makes Cinderella look like a queen. Toby Walden really made the best of the rather under-written part of the boyfriend Henry – his is a new talent to develop in the bubbling cauldron of music theatre in Cambridge.
Director Cat Nicol kept the show buzzing and managed to keep it from falling into a sink hole of despair. Andrew Taylor’s band provided perfect support and added to the sense that this was a totally professional production (which of course it wasn’t).
If I had one caveat (actually I have two) it would be that the set – Diana and Dan’s home – was too literal, and as it had to represent shifting venues, it jarred a bit to see a kitchen sink in a hospital room.
My other reservation is that the show was very long and the avalanche of songs – mostly reflective rather than dynamic to the plot – seemed to hang like a heavy weight over what was already a heavy subject. That of course is not the fault of the production which coped brilliantly with this next to abnormal show.
IMAGES: PAUL ASHLEY
