Artists Rep review: 'Next to Normal' bites off more than the average ...

?Next to Normal,? the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner, is many things. It?s a tense, touching family drama. It?s a topical examination of mental illness and its prevailing treatments. It?s a romance, a tragedy, a ghost story. And it?s a highly emotional example of that most deceptively difficult of theatrical forms, the musical.
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Such ambition is admirable, especially in a show that offers so many delivers -- as the Artists Repertory Theatre production directed by Jon Kretzu does -- so many deeply poignant moments, with meaning for so many sorts of audience members. Such ambition also leaves the show feeling a bit overstuffed at certain moments, a tad schematic at others.
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"Next to Normal"

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Sundays through June 3, plus 11 a.m. May 16

Where: Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 S.W. Morrison St.

The subject matter -- a housewife?s struggle with unresolved grief and delusional bipolar depression -- isn?t typical musical fare, but the big, complex emotions involved fit the heightened atmosphere the form provides. Nearly the entire show is sung, however, and Tom Kitt?s melodies -- despite some nods to rock ?n? roll toughness -- tend toward the soapy; the whole thing could use a little more room to breathe. There's likely something intentional about the headlong rhythm of much of the show, and the particular poignancy of the rare moments when things slow down and get quiet. But it also points up the generic quality of Kitt's music.
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And yet, the staging here is crisp and calibrated. Susannah Mars anchors the cast (paradoxically) as a woman unmoored, giving the lead role both unimpeachable vocal precision and emotional commitment. The most affecting songs, though, come from Bill Wadhams as her loyal, long-suffering husband, showing the pressures of being the strong one in the family. And Kretzu has a real find in Meghan McCandless of Medford, still a high school senior yet capable of both a powerhouse vocal performance and all the right tones of resentment, anxiety and need as the couple?s neglected daughter.

-- Marty Hughley

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