A tale of family, madness and hope

If you know about Next to Normal and love it as much as I do, there’s scarcely the need to tell you to see the Milwaukee Rep’s regional premiere of the show, which opened Friday.

If you don’t know about Next to Normal, here’s why you should: The Rep has brought Milwaukee one of the best musicals of the 21st century, and their production of it goes far past a “normal” theatrical experience.

The rock musical, which won a Tony for its score and became one of only eight musicals to win a Pulitzer, centers on the Goodmans, a family grappling with the latest mental breakdown of matriarch Diana (Sarah Litzsinger). She tries to hold things together for husband Dan (Kevin Vortmann) and daughter Natalie (Laurie Veldheer). But she is failing under the stress of the death their first child Gabe (Tim Young). Seventeen years after the boy died, he continues to visit her as an almost-real hallucination.

In capsule, it sounds like melodrama. But director Mark Clements steers clear of that. The play is shot through with comedy, albeit usually of the ironic or absurd variety. Diana hallucinates that her psychotherapist, Dr. Madden (Jarrod Emick), is a maniacal rock star, for example. Natalie’s stoner boyfriend Henry (Danny Henning) has a bong made from a Mr. Potato Head.

The musical’s songs, backed by a rock orchestra, channel the show’s darker emotions. Anger drives some of them, including You Don’t Know/I Am the One, a pair of melodies that Diana and Dan sing to each other in counterpoint. It expresses their frustrations with Diana’s disease and its effect on their marriage.

Pain drives others, such as I Dreamed a Dance, a lullaby Diana and Gabe sing as she tries to push him out of her mind, and Dan’s solo, I’ve Been, a bitter reflection on the path of his life sung late in the first act.

Clements ensures that we understand that Gabe’s specter also haunts Dan and Natalie by placing Gabe close to them on stage. Unlike the delusional Diana, Dan and Natalie do not acknowledge his presence. But he’s there. Litzsinger, Vortmann, Veldheer and Young brilliantly bring those tensions to the forefront long before the Goodmans acknowledge how much Gabe’s loss still torments them.

Litzsinger gives Diana jerky motions and stop-start singing to betray her character’s fraying mind. I saw and heard Alice Ripley in the role, on the soundtrack and on tour in Chicago this spring; Litzsinger does not suffer by the comparison. Her Diana is anxious and fearful; Ripley was manic and unpredictable. Both readings seem valid, and Litzsinger’s is just as enjoyable as Ripley’s.

Also altered is Gabe — ironic since Young is the only cast member who was part of the original Broadway show, as an understudy. Both the Broadway and tour versions give Gabe and Diana a strange, quasi-Oedipal relationship, but Young simply plays him as her lost son—sufficiently seductive in and of itself.

Veldheer’s Natalie hides her emotions behind a veil of normal teen angst and indifference. When the feelings break out, she’s spellbinding. Veldheer usually gets the spotlight with those outbursts, notably in Superboy and the Invisible Girl, a passionate cry for her parents’ attention. Veldheer is just as good in silence. Near the end of the play, as she leaves to drive her mother to the hospital, she pauses in the darkened stairwell. She’s about to lose it, and then gathers herself and keeps going, in one of the musical’s most brilliant and poignant moments.

Vortmann plays Dan with a powerful, unacknowledged grief that makes you ache. It’s moving enough that he sings beautifully while sounding close to tears. Now add such subtle actions tenderly holding Gabe’s blanket a moment too long during I’ve Been or the way he twitches every time he sees his son’s old music box. If this show makes you cry — several people did Friday — Vortmann will probably prompt the tears.

Next to Normal ends on literal (musical) notes of hope, as the closing words “There will be light” ring through the Quadracci Powerhouse. The phrase fits, in more ways that one. The Rep’s production shines.

Next to Normal runs through Jan. 15. Tickets are $10 to $65; call (414) 224-9490 or order online at the Rep’s website.