Raw emotion and minimalist presentation meet with stunning results in Tom Kitt and Brian Yorker’s musical Next to Normal, running at Sanford’s Theater West End through Sunday, March 2.
Melissa Minyard delves into a plethora of angst, grief and fractured reality as Diana Goodman, a grieving mother who attempts to hold a household together while battling bipolar disorder. During her 16-year struggle, she destroys her relationships with her daughter, Natalie (Julyette Vargas), her daughter’s boyfriend, Henry (Harvey Evans), and her husband, Dan (Jeremy Hudson). Guiding her through her grief are visions of her son (Jordan Perez), her rock-star psychotherapist (Christopher Dejonch), and the hope that her life, while not normal, could be next to it.
Although it debuted in 2008, this show addresses issues that many people still deal with. While struggling with mental health is a huge problem in the United States today, the show also confronts the lack of medical research for women. When discussing Diana’s declining mental health, we can see how the healthcare workers and system she trusts can take advantage of her. This is a situation pertinent to so many women and families, because women’s mental health studies aren’t as advanced as they should be. This makes the audience wonder, how many people has this exact story happened to and what was their ending? Today especially, with DEI rollbacks, medical research funding cuts and federal departments being shut down left and right, what’s the likelihood of Next to Normal becoming applicable to your family?
I was especially drawn to the vibrancy of Theater West End’s production. Previous productions of Next to Normal that I’ve seen used a huge dollhouse-like set, with platforms and layers for the characters to explore in momentum with the score. However, director and designer Derek Critzer stripped the house down to its most basic form: a simple chalk outline and rope-light roofline.
While initially compelling, the bare stage leaves much room to consider the rapid emotions, triumphs and epiphanies that Kitt’s score leaves you with. In particular, the blocking added momentum to the show, the actors moving in and out of the chalk outlines to signify when they were “home” — a symbol that was refreshing, and added some depth for when the characters portrayed what felt like “home” to them.
Diane and Natalie were the characters outside the chalk lines most often, reflecting their troubled relationship with the house and with each other. As the two grew into fixing their issues, the blocking tended to stay within the lines more consistently, and through trials and tribulations their relationship served as a relatable testament to the complicated mother-daughter bond.
The production’s intensity is heavily amped up by concert-style sound and lighting (designed by Parker Labonte and Critzer), almost lingering on the line of being “in your face” and feeling a little too confrontational. For audience members who are particularly sensitive to light and audiovisual effects, this production sits on the border between “wow, cool effects” and just plain overstimulating. However, I appreciated that the AV aspects of the show consistently reflected Diana’s internal turmoil.
Too often we see women struggle without the proper support, and too often we see Next to Normal staged as something “timeless,” despite how timely the issues it explores are to the current day. Theater West End tells this heart-wrenching story — which shouldn’t be relevant to modern times, but unfortunately is — in an honest and unique way.
Theater West End
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This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2025.