I Miss the Highs and Lows

Review: Next to Normal
SpeakEasy Stage Company, Boston
April 11, 2012

"I miss the mountains / I miss the dizzy heights / All the magic manic days and the dark depressing nights." This is the moment in Act One when housewive Diana starts to grasp the reality (or un-reality) of her bipolar disorder. There won't be much balance. But the show depicting this, Next to Normal, covers the spiral of treatments and their effects on a suburban family with surprising delicacy. The score is often subdued, with a light pop-rock flair. Only a few songs go for the manic side of the disorder. Composer Tom Kitt keeps spirits high and has a knack for weaving multiple characters through a song, though he's stuck with Brian Yorkey's lyrics and their occasionally distracting rhymes that you see coming in advance.


Few musicals win Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, and in Next to Normal's favor, it won't be quickly dated like the previous Pulitzer-winning musical, Rent. Next to Normal shies away from brand names and fads, and the pharmacology and psychoanalytics are generalized. In workshops and Off-Broadway, there were more numbers orienting us in the "here and now," including an ode to CostCo. But Next to Normal eventually focused on emotional heft over satire.


What it does need is a cast that brings electricity to the material. Here Speakeasy's production falls a little flat. The staging space is effectively small, trapping Diana's family inside her illness. But what the actors find in intimacy, they lose in energy. Kerry Dowling's Diana ranges from cool and collected to mildly kooky; there are more ups and downs to explore. Her voice doesn't sound comfortable with the pop score, though she manages some belting here and there. And Timothy John Smith (who filled in for her husband Dan), charismatic in 2011's Nine at Speakeasy and Candide at the Huntington, is overly disconnected. Though his singing is great, he plays the already tight-lipped Dan with too much stoicism.


The younger cast fits better, especially Sarah Drake as perfectionist daughter Natalie, who starts to lose her firm control on every aspect of her life. The writers Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt are compassionate--maybe too much?--toward the whole family, and even their critique of modern tendencies to over-subscribe/analyze patients doesn't sting too much. The show could use more bite, which a more energetic production and actors could fill in. At least, unlike a lot of modern rock musicals, the anger and angst aren't adolescent. This musical (even when it's sentimental) is for adults.