Review: Next to Normal 4/4/09 matinee (small spoilers) — Page 5

Oh, I'm not saying the show should be closed. And I love the score. It's just people were arguing, so I thought I'd say what I thought.

jordangirl: It doesn't mention psychosis, though. But I suppose if we both agree that treating the grief alone wouldn't be effective enough, this is a moot argument.

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Deep breath everyone. Sporkgoddess, it will be interesting to hear your views when you have seen the show. As JG says, it is not really possible to diagnose the play from the CD. You'd surely want to meet your client before you pronounced yourself certain, yes? There will be things in the show that alter your opinion, certainly. Like for instance, what happens between "There's a World" and the ECT. So, come back and share those things if you would. I'll be curious.

For me, I am so curious why people get so freakin' literal about this show, in particular Gabe. Did I miss it, or was there never this much discussion of whether Haley Joel Osment really SAW dead people? And whether it was irresponsible filmmaking to suggest he did? It's art! It's a play. And this play has chosen a time-honored means of telling its story. One character talks to someone who is not there. What was Hamlet's disorder? Was Shakespeare irresponsible?

This is why I keep going to the trauma. Not just because it's my curse to directly relate on that level, but because it alleviates the need to micro-analyze the event (and the past) and allows me to just see a powerful story that resonates as emotionally honest and deeply moving. And HIGHLY THEATRICAL.

Diana does say, as if it's just occurred to her, that her first therapist told her she needed to be medicated because her grief had gone on too long, that it was pathological. And it sounds to me as if she wonders, at that moment, if that diagnosis was insufficient or wide of the mark. And having lived these sixteen plus years with that diagnosis she's going to try to find another way. What way? We don't know. She leaves the office and goes to find it. Does it involve meds? Talk therapy? Hypnosis? Frequent spa treatments? Who knows? We see her at the end of the play. She's alive. She's clearly working on things-- we see that. And Dr. Madden let's Dan know she's alive and that his opinion is that she will likely be OK. (Great!) He's worried about Dan. And he should be.

It is possible that the story revolves around some medical professionals making mistakes. It is possible that Gabe is a ghost-- even possible that Dan sees him as well but refuses to admit it. It is possible that Natalie and Henry are going to repeat the relationship of Diana and Dan. THIS IS STORYTELLING, y'all!

And yes, it has a deep seat in my heart and my life. Because I lived a story that goes something like it. But most of the people who write in saying it resonates directly with them are FAR MORE grateful for the fact that it resonates than concerned about whether it's a reality show. It's not reality theater. It's not docudrama. It's a play. And a damn good one. And, bonus!, it has great music. And a great cast. And a fan base. And some writers who have gone to great lengths to manage the message of their story so that it rings with authenticity and not with judgement.

So, Sporkgoddess, I really mean I'd love to read your thoughts when you've seen it. You can PM me if you don't want to get in a public discussion about it. But I also think you would do well, in the meanwhile, to suspend your judgement based on the CD. It's an insufficient data sample from which to make your call. Just enjoy it. Don't analyze it.

I seem to recall a line in the show about Diana's specific diagnosis- or lack thereof. Something about groups of symptoms that are put under an umbrella term to describe it? I can't recall the specific line. But it I remember recalling that it was smart of the writers to include it, as it gave them a lot of wiggle room in what they do.


I'm also curious as to what SPECIFIC things people find to be untrue and/or dangerous.

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Kad--
I think the single most disturbing thing is the fact that she's diagnosed bipolar in the show and tosses her meds at the end--when effective meds are a must for virtually anyone bipolar to live a decent life. Even in her posts here, Jordangirl defends the current version of N2N by saying that it implies that Diana may have been misdiagnosed all along, which would make her NOT really bipolar after all.

So specifically, the idea that you can be bipolar and not need meds would be mostly untrue and potentially dangerous. But you are right when you point out that they gave themselves more wiggle room in this version than in the original. They do (twice) call her bipolar in the current version, and they also represent the manic part of the illness quite eloquently in "I Miss the Mountains." So even though they have these bipolar elements, they've also got the post-trauma going, too, and it does all make for a mish-mash.

The most important thing people need to know about bipolar illness is that it's something you're born with that almost always requires medication...neither of which is clear here.

I think they really went out of their way to make it very ambiguous about what is truly causing Diana's issues. I think it was a very smart move, that way they do give themselves the wiggle room.

The show is definitely less about what is actually wrong with her and more about the resulting issues that have affected all their lives.

TOO LATE, BUT SPOILERS...

I think there are also too many versions of the show in people's heads, in some ways. If you just go now, without the Second Stage version in your head, you come away without the same confidence that it's actually about bipolar illness, or that it's even entirely about Diana. This show is really about the family and the producers seem to know that, hence the marketing. But the chat makes it seem like it's all about Diana, which it was at Second Stage but isn't any longer. And I'm willing to acknowledge, and happily, that the SHOW is all about Alice. She's other worldly here and seems, therefore, to be the 'point' of the show. But is she, really, in the current rendition of it?

Also, we keep talking about Dan's role as someone who hasn't dealt with his own loss and struggles because he needs to be strong for her, but what he's really not faced is his failure. Until the moment in the nursery where he sings "How could I ever forget" and describes what happened and says "I was a child..." he's still not faced his shame. And Gabe sings with him on the lyric "I am the one who watched while you died." He and Gabe are acknowledging there that they both died that day, not just the son. And that's the grief he dumped on Diana. That's the grief she's been trying to metabolize and she can't because it's his. No amount of medicating Diana is going to help Dan.

Updated On: 4/8/09 at 11:32 PM

Spork, to answer your earlier concern that no anti-psychotic drugs were mentioned for Diana, Risperidal was mentioned I believe, which is an anti-psychotic med.

Oh, if they mention Risperidol, I'm happy. So scratch that complaint. I was confused by the lack of lithium, too, but they do mention later that she was on too much of it. Huh.

iamdangoodman: I would love to see the show if I get the chance, and give it a full review for everyone to read. I'm hoping it will still be playing when I'm in NYC for a conference this November (assuming our poster gets accepted, that is). I would looove to see Alice Ripley live, if nothing else.

A friend just told me that the anti-psychotropic message was toned down a lot for the Broadway version, so I must have been going off of the previous version. Glad to hear that they dealt with that better, though IMO it still isn't perfect.

Re: Diana's diagnosis, I really think that she has to be bipolar (assuming that you believe she is mentally ill, that is). She mentions mania so she can't just have major depression, and she definitely doesn't have flattened affect, autistic interactions, cognitive and speech problems, etc. that tend to go along with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia would make more sense for her age of onset, though. As mentioned earlier, bipolar usually manifests itself earlier, such as in the teenaged years, so that's why I'm going with idea that she was disposed but the disorder would not have manifested itself had the trauma with Gabe not happened. I do think that if the show wants to be more generic, it needs to take out the reference to mania and maybe not list Diana's diagnosis.

Yes, diagnoses are only for a cluster of behavioral symptoms, but that's how all mental illnesses are diagnosed. It's not perfect, but it's the best thing that we've got. There's more to it than just the DSM, though: Diana would likely have undergone a clinical interview and neuropsych testing. But I guess as someone in the field, I would need to have more faith in diagnosis than some of you do.

And, yes, the portrayal of bipolar's emotional whirlwind and the effect mental illness can have on families in the show is wonderful. I mean, as much as I can tell without having the disorder, myself. My mom's nephew's wife has it, though, and her nephew has a lot of the same problems that Dan did (especially with her not taking meds).

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Updated On: 4/9/09 at 01:25 AM

Glad to hear that they dealt with that better, though IMO it still isn't perfect.

There is no perfect to achieve. Even if every technical detail lined up in a perfectly realistic manner, there'd still be someone to stress the burden of responsible storytelling.

The debate is tiring, and I sometimes think it hurt the evolution of the show. I'd rather my art be rich than be correct. There's a reason love songs with the stupidest sentiments often resonate the most. An issue represented more broadly can be represented more artfully, and an issue represented with more humor connects more.

KingKong, go read the old Feeling Electric communities on LJ. There were posters who were relieved they refused ECT after experiencing previous versions of this show. I guess it's easy to make ridiculous declarations such as yours when you didn't see the version of the show with Frankensteinian electrocution sound effects during Diana's ECT.


I do believe the Arena Stage production was much improved from the NYMF version of Feeling Electric's view of mental illness. The creative team worked with mental health professionals eventually, but that was long after they had the show's music and plot set. They've inserted a handful of lines to help, but its portrayal of mental health is still about as accurate as West Side Story's portrayal of gangs.

If that's all they aspire to, fine, but then the show shouldn't constantly be hailed as "groundbreaking" for portraying mental illness anymoreso than Hamlet or The Madness of King George are.

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Good post, skittles! I like N2N, but can't quite love it for exactly that reason...unfortunately they're still using too many bipolar symptoms to completely forget about that diagnosis and focus on the grief. People can post till the cows come home like they're doing here and Diana's psychiatric symptoms will never quite jibe. It's terrific theater, but I agree that it would be even more "honest" and "groundbreaking" if it made more sense. Jeez, KingKong, you crack me up! F--- 'em if they can't take a joke might be okay, but not so much for a young, impressionable kid who's trying to navigate mental illness and might be looking for clues, even from a B'way show...and don't bash me on that one, ok? Or I will wish severe psychiatric illness on someone you care about...kidding

Craww: did you think the show got less instead of better during its revisions?

I've heard the early versions, I saw it at Second Stage, and I've heard the cast recording and some recaps of the changes made at Arena Stage. I can't say for sure whether I think the revisions were a complete success until I see it on Broadway.

I'm not saying it got worse, I'm just saying I feel like the revisions were hurt by trying to please the arbiters of responsible storytelling. I feel like a lot of the dark humor was lost, for one.

Jeez, KingKong, you crack me up! F--- 'em if they can't take a joke might be okay, but not so much for a young, impressionable kid who's trying to navigate mental illness and might be looking for clues, even from a B'way show...and don't bash me on that one, ok? Or I will wish severe psychiatric illness on someone you care about...kidding

That's ridiculous. Sure, KingKong's responses on these threads are borderline trolling in how unreasonable they are, but this isn't the way to respond either. It's not the responsibility of the art to babysit troubled children. Do I think changes needed to be made to how they handled mental illness within this show? Yes, sure. If only because there's a sheer laziness to the hodgepodge of symptoms and treatments contained within. I just think any changes they made should have gone towards serving the material, not towards serving the consensus of the medical community.

I'm not even sure there'd be a show at all if everything inaccurate or unbelievable were excised. I'm not sure the barebones of the plot supports it. All these circular arguments make me wish everyone would just think of it as a ghost story and debate the supernatural instead of the psychiatric.

Updated On: 4/10/09 at 11:55 PM

Jeez, KingKong, you crack me up! F--- 'em if they can't take a joke might be okay, but not so much for a young, impressionable kid who's trying to navigate mental illness and might be looking for clues, even from a B'way show...and don't bash me on that one, ok? Or I will wish severe psychiatric illness on someone you care about...kidding

Oh look, complete idiocy from you, yet again.