Next to Normal soars again, its West End debut season blessed with an extraordinary cast and a boldly confident new production.
The rare wholly original musical, Next to Normal won the 2009 Best Score Tony Award for Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorke (lyrics) as well as the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Transferring to the West End after a hit season at Donmar Warehouse last year, this production comes alive on a grand scale while maintaining the highly personal focus on its tight ensemble cast of six performers.
What initially seems like “Just Another Day” for a perfect loving family is soon derailed as Diana Goodman begins making sandwiches across the kitchen floor. With treatment progressing through psychopharmacology, hypnosis, and ECT, there are shown to be no easy solutions, with Diana’s mental illness impairing not just her own life but that of her whole family.
Director Michael Longhurst shows keen insight into the challenging material, presenting Diana’s journey through mental illness treatments with empathy and clarity, with requisite surreal touches of fantasy along the way.
Dan and Diana Goodman studied architecture and the house they built has clean modern Scandi lines. Designer Chloe Lamford houses the rocking band of six musicians upstairs in rooms that double as the second storey of the home. The smooth, sheer walls are the perfect canvas for psychedelic projections (by Cal Rosner) and lighting (by Lee Curran), the combined result strikingly recreating a sense of the dizzying effect of treatment on Diana’s mind.
Particularly clever in the design is the use of a revolve for Diana’s sessions with each of her doctors. Whenever Diana is sitting opposite a doctor, the turntable slowly revolves, effectively conveying the perpetual sense of off-kilter disorientation.
Music is at a premium, with musical supervisor Nigel Lilley and musical director Nick Barstow preparing a thrilling sound from the six gifted musicians on stage. With the audience staying around for the playout, there is a heady feeling of having just attended a live rock gig.
Leading the well matched ensemble cast of six is Caissie Levy, giving an extraordinary powerhouse performance as Diana. Levy’s vocal gifts allow her to belt the score with unflinching power whilst retaining full control over nuanced expression and dynamics. A gifted actress, Levy underpins her vocal strength with affecting vulnerability; every thought, conflict, and realisation travels across Levy’s face and body with perfect clarity.
A compelling acting partner for Levy, Jamie Parker brings the sense of a lost boy to Diana’s husband Dan, drawing natural audience sympathy for a man who has been over his head in tumultuous challenges for so many years.
Young actor Jack Wolfe is terrific as son Gabe, expertly conveying Gabe’s lack of interaction with most of the characters. Wolfe’s rendition of “I’m Alive” is a thrilling highlight.
In Longhurst’s concept, daughter Natalie is something of a mini-me Diana, right down to the tousled blonde hair. Eleanor Worthington-Cox works a little hard initially to convey Natalie’s chaos but eventually settles and allows the audience to come to her.
Although Jack Ofrecio looks a little too baby-faced for the stoner / slacker aspects of Henry, he definitely captures Henry’s unfailing devotion to Natalie in what is ultimately a winning performance.
In dual roles of The Doctors, Trevor Dion Nicholas gives Dr Fine an OCD edge of his own before moving to the larger role of Dr Madden, where he amusingly contrasts the mild mannered man with the scary rockstar persona that Diana visualises.
For newcomers or existing fans, this production of Next to Normal is premium West End fare that is not to be missed. Please join Man in Chair in praying to the gods of theatre for a cast recording.
Next to Normal was reviewed 7.30pm 24 July 2024 at Wyndhams Theatre, London where it plays until 21 September 2024. For tickets, click here.
Photos: Marc Brenner