Next To Normal Opening Night at Arena Stage — Page 3

Oh, My, God.

so I JUST got home from DC. Absolutely AMAZING. They better bring it back to new york and record the **** out of it.


more at a time where i haven't been awake forever and am not recovering from a total of 9 hours on buses in one day

I don't really me Dan for much and I think that adds to the complexity.

Um, what???

Anyway... I don't think Dan's lack of dealing with Gabe's death necessarily means that he and Diana are not "compatible" as you put it. Yes, that and his attempts at protecting her (yes, purposely not mentioning Gabe after the ECT is part of that ~ it wasn't just something that slipped his mind...he was doing the best he knew how) are making it at the time a toxic environment for Diana, but that doesn't mean that it will always be that way. Once he seeks his own help to deal with it ~ which you do see him beginning to do at the end ~ and does his own dealing with it without having to be afraid of hurting Diana as she does what she needs to to deal on her own, there is every reason to think that with the right balance and communication they could not reunite. Once Gabe stops being the elephant in the room, anything is possible.

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i feel like i've heard this before. I'll believe it when i see it on Playbill.


Also, if they do it, it needs to have at least one bonus track (i'd really love 2) of Anthony singing Feeling Electric. He's part of the reason the show has made it this far (since he stayed heavily involved after NYMF) and well, he's awesome singing that song.


I'd also kill to hear Brian sing I've been, but c'est la vie.

"i feel like i've heard this before. I'll believe it when i see it on Playbill."

It was mentioned in the theatremania review back in November.

Again, we heard this all before during 2ST. I'll believe it when I see it on Playbill.

TonyVincent, did I meet you after the evening show on Saturday? I remember talking to someone who came down from NY to see the show (having seen it at Second Stage) and he also mentioned not liking the removal of "Let Their Be Light" from the beginning.

Ironically, I've found the reason you liked "Light" at the beginning is the reason I like its removal. I find the end much more hopeful and I think it's appropriate. I'm all for depressing musicals, but this show almost requires the hopeful ending. It's the story of a family wading through the symptoms in an attempt to find the root of the problem. Since they find the root of the problem in the end, it's only appropriate that "Light" is so hopeful. I don't like or agree with the idea that the family is "back where they started or worse."

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That was me--nice to meet you, freeadmission!

I got your point in the theater and I like how you presented it here, but I think it's a matter of what level you perceive it:

You can look at it as the family and their story--if we only include it at the end, then you're saying there's hope to their story. But if you look at their story as a moral from which they and we can learn, we can see that there's always hope in a situation, and even if it's not quite the outcome you want, there's still hope in the future, and one must appreciate the journey it took to get there.

I don't think they're better off at the end than the beginning. They may have made a decision that they hope will lead to a resolution (Diana having some time on her own, Dan facing the feelings he has been suppressing for years), but it's just a new means towards the same end (coming to terms with a loss). No real progress has been made towards the goal, but the point of the show is that doesn't always matter--there's always hope, and, to use a cliche, it's all about the journey.

That's my opinion, at least. As an aside, I find it interesting that they reveal that Diana ended up at her mother's. I guess it adds more hope and tries to lessen some of the obscurity surrounding her future.

Updated On: 1/13/09 at 05:15 PM

Ah! My favorite topic. Man, am I going to miss this show if it doesn't find a home in NY! One more trip over the Inauguration and it could be done for me. Noooooooooo!

On Light and Hope in Next to Normal. (Long.)

In my view, the family is in a much better place at the end of the play now (as compared to where it ended at Second Stage, specifically.)

1) Diana has gotten out of the co-dependent dynamic in her home, for a spell at any rate, and is last seen journaling on her own (probably at her parents, yes, but on her own.)

2) She left and GABE stayed behind. Crucial to the sense of progress-- she actually looks at him on the way out the door and leaves him behind.

3) Dan is asked by the Doctor if he'd like to talk. He accepts. He's beginning his own journey, on his own, not as "the one who just waits in the car." Will that journey take him back toward Diana, who knows, but the dynamic is broken, again, and that codependency was the illness, not just the bi-polar condition.

4) Natalie has clearly found a grounding in Henry, at least for the moment, and in the final moments as the Doctor and Diana sing about the price of love being loss, Dan watches his daughter and her 'favorite problem' who are clearly willing to "love anyway."

5) The song is now significantly reworded. It has gone from the 2ST version (Let There Be Light) which is a sort of plea for light in all our lives to THERE WILL BE LIGHT-- a declaration to each of us that if "we open up our lives, sons and daughters husbands wives, and fight that fight, there will be light."

6) The fact that it starts now with Just Another Day and moves to this new version of Light at the end is progression, not circular.

7) Diana clearly has understood the delusion of Gabe. She looks at him on the stairs in the Alive reprise in Act 2 not as her son but as something malevolent, that means her harm. She runs to the doctor who tells her "Make up your mind. This is clarity. Clarity that you did not have before." She moves on from this realization, connects with her daughter, extracts herself from the situation, and leaves telling Dan "I loved you once I know, I love you still, and so, it's time for me to go." There's hope there, to me.

But then, IAmDanGoodman, so maybe it's all my own self-justifying take on the show!

I meant to write "blame" when I wrote "me" in the post a few weeks ago - how I don't really blame Dan. Sorry for the crappy typing, jordangirl!

Anywho! TonyVincent, you said that "it's just a new means towards the same end (coming to terms with a loss)." To me, both Dan and Diana were NOT coming to terms with the loss as the play opens. Dan begins to come to terms as he talks wtih Dr. Madden, and Diana does as she walks out.

Also, jordangirl, a good point about Dan and Diana's compatibility. They could meet up in a good spot in the future. I guess, what I meant, Dan and Diana were not compatible for each other over the course of the play. However, if we look into future events, they could meet up.

And I'm glad they changed the wording of "Let There Be Life." Frankly, the show doesn't need any biblical allusions. Glad to see all the cool responses, this show is absolutely my new favorite.

So, let's assume the cast is right and there's going to be a recording just for the sake of argument.

Does anyone know the turn around time on something like this? If they record in February, when would I be able to get a copy of it?

I'm already having withdrawl symptoms.

Reading through some of the other posts...

TonyVincent: Didn't make the connection about Dan as the "one who waits in the car." I saw that as a lack of support, not as someone unable to face his stress.
I'm assuming you mean lack of support by his waiting in the car as opposed to waiting in the waiting room? Because it's not like he could be in the sessions with her since it's not couple's counseling they were going for. I think it's a case of Dan doing the best thing he knows to do. As he says (echoing Diana's statement of the same thing), he was a child trying to raise a child. They both were. At 22 (Dan's age when Gabe was born) and...assume a year or two younger for Diana, how many of us (who have passed that point in our lives) would have had the maturity to do everything "perfectly" regarding grieving the death of a child? I think they were both doing what they could, and then the patterns got ingrained.

iamdangoodman ~ I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I don't fully agree that Diana's diagnosis was incorrect. When she says "didn't quite cover it" she's referring to the delusions and everything that goes along with that. They did cut a few things that made it clear early on that there is definitely a manic side to her. As much as "Costco" really didn't work for the show, it did show the impulsiveness that mania can bring on. They did have a bit in early at Arena during "My Psychopharmacologist And I" that hinted at it as well ~ when Dan says "I was so young and so dumb and now I am old" there was a "flashback" so to speak of Dan's 21st birthday where Diana had gotten him 21 presents "one for each year you've been alive" (at 2econd Stage it was impulsivity of helicopter skiing) ~ which she really couldn't afford. It also showed how early on Dan was protecting her as the minute she started to get upset, he was all "it's good. it's fine." The additional part with Diana would definitely be termed "complicated bereavement"...as Dan's will now that he's seeking help too.

I do think it's hard to extrapolate what their process was back when Gabe died. Obviously neither of them processed correctly, but I don't know that we can definitively say Dan NEVER grieved for him. But it seems like he probably took the manual version of "four months" to heart with whatever he did do. Yes, he likely tried to be strong for Diana, but there's not an indication he NEVER did any grieving. Just that it wasn't complete.

I have to say, as much as I love the show, the math STILL doesn't add up. Unless Natalie was conceived in an attempt to have a child to help save Gabe if anything like that was found to be wrong with him, if she's 16 (as it's pretty clear she is both from her driving AND from her own mouth "where has all this caring been for 16 years"), she was either so early it's a miracle she survived (could help further explain Diana's not wanting to hold her) or she was already conceived when Gabe died if he was 18 months old and he would have been turning 18 during the course of the play. I've sometimes wondered if they intended it to be 18 weeks old ("those weeks full of joy" ~ it seems like if it was months they would have said "months full of joy") but somewhere along the line someone put the wrong word in somewhere. THAT would actually make a lot more sense. But... I've just learned not to let the math bug me. It gives me a headache if I think about it too much.

I do love the parallel between parents and kids in "The Promise". When Dan says "You'd remember that girl, I'd remember that boy" I always interpreted it at 2econd Stage as Diana remembering Natalie and Dan remembering Gabe ~ which I still think is partly intended. But it has struck me in the Arena production ~ I guess because of the way Bobby plays Dan and some of the changes put in ~ that he could just as easily have the double meaning of Diana remembering Diana before everything and Dan remembering Dan before everything. I LOVE that part. :)

Ok...novella ended for now.

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Thanks, JordanGirl.

Here's another long-ass response. I've never had this big an obession with a musical, or any play for that matter, so if it's boring y'all just skip it. I do love kickin' this stuff around with everyone, though! I've been having these conversations with myself on the bus, so it's great to get in a dialogue.

Re: Time
I know. That's a great puzzle. And it makes my head hurt as well. The play starts in September and ends sometime after the March 1st dance that Natalie and Henry attend. And it's Natalie's birthday at the end of the play, Gabe's at the start. So if it's his 18th birthday in September and Natalie's 16th in May, that sort of works. Gabe died sometime before his second birthday. (Let's say August, for the hell of it.) Natalie was born nine months later. (Let's say late May for the equal hell of it.) And you're there: He's 18 at the start, she's 16 at the end.

Re: Bipolar illness
I have a couple quick reactions. First, it's interesting to me that we all have these associations with the characters that cover 'versions' of the play that the audience doesn't see when they go now. So, I remember Diana's mania and her shopping and her description of her symptoms from other sources and assume 'she's' still carrying that history. I so think I actually know these people and this is their actual history. (This has never happened to me with a play before, by the way.) But audiences without that information see a woman who gets 'carried away' making sandwiches, which is manic yes, but who also says that she's been medicated because of her issues dealing with the death of her son, for a very long time. And the doctor says it's not an exact science and is seen adjusting her meds once again to get her back to those 'blank and tranquil' years. So it does raise the question of exactly how ill she is and how much is her reaction to the treatment protocols. I'm not saying I think she's not bi-polar, but I think it's less about that illness now overall and is more about the impact of the trauma on the whole family. And again, I'm an unreliable analyst here as I relate specifically to this notion, though bi-polar illness is not part of the equation in the experience I bring with me into the theater. So I'm saying, I guess, that this whole experience of their dynamic doesn't require bi-polar illness as a cause. The inability to cope with and process trauma (both his and hers) seems to be 'the underlying challenge', which is expressed by Diana in manic-depressive behaviors and delusions, expressed by Dan in a kind of desperate "It's gonna be good" mantra that ignores the facts on the ground.

Re: Dan waiting in the car
The first line of that song says everything I needed to know to understand the thin line Dan is on with himself. "Who's crazy? The one who can't cope? Or maybe, the one who still hopes? The one who sees doctors or the one who just waits in the car?" Taken at face value, Dan's not sure the right person is being treated. It goes on to sound more like he's saying he's nuts for sticking around, but when I first heard that lyric "Who's crazy?" I started tracking Dan and was both delighted (by the writers) and not surprised to find Gabe sticking around his neck after Diana leaves. And when he agreed to talk to Dr. Madden, I had a surge of hope for them all.

Re: Their process of greiving
You're of course right that we're reading a lot between the lines, and again it's like we are talking about real people in our lives. I go to the extreme about Dan never really greiving him because that's the text of a couple of Gabe's lyrics ("Until you greive me you won't leave me behind" for example) and because he won't speak his name. But I'm totally filling in blanks there with my own backstory for them.

Oh, and TonyVincent: It's not that I don't notice Alice Ripley's interesting dance with pitch. But I'm so swept into her as a being, and as THIS being, that it becomes part of my experience. I find myself cheering her on through those difficult passages (and she does have to work through a couple of them) as part of my experience of cheering her on to surviving. So, you're not wrong. But it's OK, or more than OK, with me. I saw South Pacific recently and Kelli O'Hara sang the role so beautifully but so SMALL-ly that I couldn't hear her over the orchestra much of the time, and the acting was thorough but teensy weensy. And I was so proud of Diana/Alice as I watched it because of the fierce and human tsunami she is in the role and the bravery of the performer to just go for the true core of the piece and try to fight her way out from there. I'm sure if Alice were more careful about how she was doing with pitch she could handle that as well but at the expense of the rawness of the experience for her and for us.