Geva Theatre Center is certainly getting more bang for their bucks by co-producing a number of first-class works with other leading regional theaters, in this case presenting a superb production of an important new musical drama in association with Atlanta’s Alliance Theater.
Next to Normal was a surprise smash hit on Broadway in 2009 where it won several Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for its creators Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt. Expanding our definitions of musical theater, the piece deals affectingly and memorably with family tragedies, mental illness and its treatment, and varying concepts of love and normality. Next to Normal elicits a variety of responses, but indifference is never one of them.
I was a little put off by the advance descriptions of Next to Normal as a “tragic rock opera.” I’d call it a thoughtful, stirring rock musical. Certainly, its plot has tragic elements, but its characters’ eventual resolutions to their individual problems are affirmative and exhilarating in their dynamic musical expression. The dialogue is sung-through, like Adam Guettel’s or Stephen Sondheim’s musicals, but most of those, like this very individual, seven-character tale, do not require a large chorus to stampede onstage. The powerhouse style of the music is certainly rock, but the work is more small-scale and personal than what is suggested by “operatic” (opera being the plural of opus). Certainly, the teen-aged son Henry’s thrilling solo, “I am Alive!” is as dazzling as many operatic arias; but it reminds me more of the self-affirmative title-song from Hair or Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here!” than an operatic show-off solo like Figaro’s “Largo al Factotum” or the Toreador’s song from Carmen. This boy has a desperate assertion to rock us with. And so do the whole cast in their defiantly affirmative finale.
I won’t spoil the surprise or the story’s masterfully controlled revelation that lets us understand the mother’s seeming preference for her teen-aged son over her equally needy teen-aged daughter. Nor would I attempt to deal with the physical, medical, chemical and psychological treatments that effect the dramatic evolution of the mentally disturbed mother in this raggedly loving family. It’s enough to tell you that every character has at least one featured moment requiring a first-rate performer and that every performer lives up to the challenge, knocking us back in our seats in shock and raising us up to applaud in awe. It’s a rock musical. So it’s not that subtle. But, oh boy! is it involving!
Geva inherited a stunning production from Alliance Theater, and Geva’s musicians, impressively led by Don Kot, handle the music splendidly. Scott Schwartz, who directed Geva’s world premiere of the dark musical, ROOMS, A Rock Romance, a few years ago, seems to have a flawless control of the performance.
The designs smartly do not call attention to themselves, though Mike Baldassari’s lighting is notably emotionally helpful. The cast are all entirely satisfying, including two equally fine performers who surprisingly are not yet Equity members. The remarkable Catherine Porter, who understudied the mother’s role on Broadway, is truly affecting in the lead, as is New York theater veteran Bob Gaynor as her handsome, suffering husband. And Cary Tedder, who plays their son, stops the show twice to allow for extended applause.
Next to Normal makes demands of its audience but rewards them with surprising, and very moving theatrical experience. It is the most-produced musical in the United States this season, and Geva’s current production has to be one of the very best.
