The phenomenal musical play Next to Normal by Brian Yorkie is an emotional rollercoaster which uses the music stylings of Tom Kitt mixed with the beautiful words of Yorkie to create not just a story, but a lesson about mental illness and its effects on a family.
The story starts with a small family of four who are getting ready for a normal day, but as their hustling and bustling continues the musical number as well as the actions of the characters begin to uncover a hint of something not so normal going on behind the scenes. We get a taste of the troubled teenage girl who works hard in an effort to get attention from her distant parents. There is the equally distant and troubled brother who seems to have some kind of issue with the dad. There is the mother who is worried for her children as well as dissatisfied with the relationship she has with her husband and then lastly the disgruntled husband who just does not understand his wife.
Nothing seems super out of the ordinary, but still the undertones in the dialogue, music, and distance between the family suggest something more. It isn’t until our troubled teenage daughter brings home a boy from school, and we sit down to dinner to find out the true struggle of this small family. The truth is finally revealed when the mother brings out a birthday cake to celebrate the older son’s birthday which causes a harrowing silence between father and daughter. There is no son. He has been dead for 18 years.
The tale goes on to teach us about the hardships of a mother with a heart wrenching mental illness, a daughter who hungers for the attention her mother gives to her imaginary eighteen-year-old brother, and the father who struggles to hold the family together.
The play, to me, is a way of showing the behind the scenes of mental illness. It has an effect on everyone in the victim’s life, but of course no one is effected more than the victim which seems to be something some people cannot comprehend. The mother of the story, Diana, sees hallucinations of her dead son, and is constantly being told she needs to let go, or make up her mind to get better, as her psychiatrist tells her, but in reality it just isn’t that easy. That’s like telling someone with cancer to just hurry up and get over it. It does not work that way. One of my favorite songs from the play is You Don’t Know which is when she is desperately trying to get it into her husband’s head that he just doesn’t understand what she is going through, and I think it really hits the nail on the head.
The play finally boils down to trying to find some kind of normal ground to stand on in order to survive this crazy life. Pills and therapy are not working at this point, so the only thing for Diana to do is leave, and I think this is the right move because where she is at now fills her with nothing but memories of the loss of her son. She needs to be somewhere where she might be able to at least staunch the memories, and get back to a life that might not be normal, but at least Next to Normal.
This play is fantastic, and I would recommend that everyone see it. The first time I watched it I did notice the music numbers were sort of scattered which is to say the style was all over the place. However, the second time I watched it I was quite impressed with the variety, and thought it was a fitting choice considering the story revolves around mental illness which comes in variety and is, itself, all over the place. The setting was a simple two story setting which never changed besides the bringing in of tables, chairs, and the occasional piano. I liked this because sometimes setting can be very overbearing, but this way we can focus more on the actors and the story at hand.
Overall this play teaches a valuable lesson about mental illness, and should be witnessed by everyone at least once. The music, setting, actors, and writing work in harmony to bring this beautiful piece to life.
