Next To Normal @ Wyndham’s Theatre, London

*Trigger warning — this review mentions briefly the themes of the musical including suicide and self-harm, grief, bereavement, loss of a child, the medicalisation of mental and emotional health and grief, medication use and abuse*

A gut-punch of a musical with phenomenal integrated music, staging, singing and acting — such a cast! The unique use of dance and movement throughout the production, and the ways in which the cast support each other throughout. As an audience, you’re also more likely to end up weeping in the toilets at the interval than seeking out a half-time ice-cream and thinking about the raw emotional themes explored when you leave.

Brian Yorkey’s musical explores the medicalisation of women’s health and emotions in a contemporary setting. We’re in a suburban home, shiny, sleek and clean, where we encounter Diana (Caissie Levy) talking to her teenage son Gabe (Jack Wolfe). She also seems to be being parented by her teenage daughter Natalie (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) through her big emotions and bigger behaviour. She seems to shove her sex life into her daughter’s face, furiously clean and DIY, and even more furiously unstoppably production line sandwiches for a cast of thousands— on the floor. Bemused Dan (Jamie Parker) loves his wife, but is also hiding what’s going on and indeed covering up for her. We learn that this isn’t the first time, it’s been going on throughout Natalie’s childhood, and in all of this, Natalie is barely seen or heard. Though is this ‘Just Another Day?’

But there are reasons for this as we learn later on, though the focus is on Diana’s diagnosis and the medicines to subdue/regulate it. Searing in its exploration of loss and pain, it’s about a woman with apparently long term mental health conditions (bipolar disorder) not being seen or heard, for whom the drugs literally don’t work and the treatments just make it worse. We hear and see the side effects, though as we learn later — there is trauma and grief too, unacknowledged and undealt with, being medicalised and almost zapped away by ECT treatments. Only all the memories go, including Diana’s sense of self. And Gabe won’t go — for he’s alive and the connection he has with Diana won’t go away that easily.

Very anti-big Pharma, Doctors Fine and Madden (Trevor Dion Nicholas) are shown as ineffective, though not uncaring. Whatever they do, issuing a sea of pills or digging up painful memories through talking therapies and hypnosis, nothing works. However the behaviours they’re trying to reduce and regulate have a very reasonable cause — the failure of the medical profession to diagnose a child correctly resulting in their death. Diana feels her ‘failure’ to respond to treatment, to recover, to get ‘better’ — but how can she when no-one is really listening or seeing the cause. (As she does). Or consider how long she’s been enduring — she sees Gabe as a 16 year-old; in reality he was a young child.

From early on, I started to worry for Natalie. Her ‘Superboy and the Invisible Girl’ is a cry of pain and frustration. She practices piano to avoid going home and perhaps to lose herself in something, to distract. Natalie is keeping it altogether — but for how much longer? Henry (Jack Ofrecio) could be a support or a bad influence, worryingly both he and Natalie focus on how perfect they are for each other. The impact and strain of her family life leads Natalie to self-medicate, to throw away school-work and to seek distraction, disconnection in clubbing. At the same time she suppresses what’s really going on — both Natalie and Dan’s response to Diana is to call the doctor at all times.

Comparing the couples, Henry turns out to be much healthier than Dan. He seeks to care rather than protect and wants Natalie to be herself rather than the obliterated version she’s presenting to the world, to improve himself to be a better man for her. He encourages her back to health and her sense of self by going to the Prom together. Contrastingly Dan avoids talking about Gabe, putting his death firmly in the past and while he loves his wife, it’s protective, reactive, cocooning. His focus is on the home they’ve built together — inspite of everything. Over time, we learn a lot about his own guilt and shame and how he’s dealt with the grief and pain by suppressing it, burying it, not talking about it at all. Reliably he turns up, cleans up, but he cannot do what his wife really needs — acknowledge their loss, bereavement and anguish.

Diana and Natalie are compared throughout the musical — in their behaviours, emotions, relationships. Dan and Diana married young once she got pregnant, Diana feels that she lost herself along the way ‘I Miss The Mountains’. Dan longs for his wife to be herself again, to be the person she once was — bold and brilliant. We see her anticipating everyone else’s needs but her own. Over time, we hear about the emotional disconnect she experienced with Natalie, that Natalie was conceived as a ‘replacement’, that Diana couldn’t hold her when she was born and that she loves her as best she can. Natalie meanwhile has had to deal with a mum who is publicly and privately embarrassing, inappropriate, not present, obviously suffering and exclusively focused on a dead sibling, who she talks to and creates birthday cakes for.

Though it’s excruciating material, the stunning creativity of Tom Kitt’s music, Brian Yorkey’s lyrics and book, Michael Longhurst’s direction, Chloe Lamford’s set, Ann Yee’s movement and choreography, Lee Curran’s lighting, Tal Rosner’s video designs to show the impact on Diana’s brain, Tony Gayle’s sound, the way that the cast provide backing vocals for each other, make this a absorbing rigorous work. We’re just in it. A ghost story too as Gabe ‘haunts’ Diana, whimsically dancing with her or talking with her. Though over time, her hallucinations start to become malevolent — Gabe won’t leave, we wait for him ominously to return after the ect. How Dan tries to prevent him coming back by hiding his baby things, family photographs, destroying an object associated with him and never mentioning his name. Dan is battling to keep the memories and Gabe at bay. Horribly Gabe fights back against the doctor’s orders to get rid of his baby things (and him) by encouraging his mother to be with him forever, by committing suicide. We fear for Dan when he encounters Gabe for himself — though this turns out to be cathartic, an unleashing of pushed down agony and torment. He too has been trying to keep it altogether for the sake of Diana, grieving and suffering in an entirely different way.

Though I’m worried for Natalie as she’s yet again parenting a parent, being the carer for an adult who should be caring for her and Henry and Natalie are supporting each other through so much together.

I don’t know how the cast achieve this on a daily basis — the sheer hard work and talent that goes into this production. Diana’s amazing vocals, but also how Gabe is present within the family and Jack Wolfe’s moments of letting rip during ‘I’m Alive’.

My take-away from all of this is how isolated the family were, individually and collectively. Ideally there would be singing and caring teachers, counsellors, support staff, faith groups, support groups, friends and neighbours. Indeed there would also be regular ways of memoralising and remembering Gabe.

It’s also about shame (from the characters themselves and from society and community) which causes them to not want others to see, to get alongside and get involved, to shut the doors, to not invite in. Whilst medication and therapy are beneficial things, this was very much about their misuse, misapplication, seen through Diana’s experiences, her vulnerability, alarm and disconnection. The horrible alarm that she was ‘falling’, unsure of what was real and what was not, exemplified by Dr Fine turning into a screaming rock star inexplicably. Altogether it was also about how we try to stifle long-term health conditions, emotions and grieving, and we need to listen, not just treating the physical symptoms.

Enjoyed reading this article?! Support my writing at: https://ko-fi.com/susanadventuresinculture