Next to Normal Shows Path to Healing

Mental illness is a difficult and messy ordeal. Addressing it can be heartbreaking, controversial and immensely uncomfortable. Next to Normal dared to tackle the complicated issue this past weekend, April 16-18, in a rock-musical that touched on everything from bipolar disorder to electroconvulsive therapy to drug abuse. Directed by David Fine ’17, the show demonstrated that where normal human dialogue falters, music begins.

The story revolves around a family with fragile foundations: Diana, the mother, played by Lisa Wooldridge ’16, struggles with bipolar disorder. Concerned husband Dan, portrayed by Tim Hansen ’18, attempts to help her whilst suppressing his own grief and maintaining that everything is perfectly fine. Teenage daughter Natalie, played by Paige Guarino ’18.5, feels overwhelmed by schoolwork and neglected at home by two parents who, amidst the onslaught of medications and counseling appointments, seem to have far larger concerns than raising her. And lastly, there is 18-year-old son Gabe, portrayed by Josh Goldenberg ’18. He is mildly apathetic, snarky … and not actually alive.

Though initially depicted as a regular teenage boy, Gabe is merely a hallucination that haunts Diana’s mind, an eerie memory of the deceased infant that died sixteen years earlier. Wherever Diana goes, he appears, simultaneously her greatest comfort and most dangerous avenue to denial and disconnect. In their portrayal of this unconventional mother-son relationship, Wooldridge and Goldenberg crafted interactions onstage that brimmed with an odd mixture of delusion, dependency and love.

As a manifestation of Diana’s unhealthy imagination, Gabe becomes the trigger behind his mother’s most extreme moments of instability, the contrived justification behind her impulsive acts of self-destruction. At the end of a particularly emotionally-draining day, it is “Gabe” who convinces Diana to flush her pills down the toilet by telling her, “I think it’s a great idea. I think you’re brave.”

Despite his role as the ghost of a grieving mother’s memory, Goldenberg’s presence was anything but subdued. Dancing, singing and shouting his way across the stage, he performed with an energy and effervescence that enraptured the audience, even as every character except Diana ignores his existence.

Psychopharmaceutic buzzwords echo throughout the musical, particularly in the number “Who’s Crazy/My Psychopharmacologist and I,” a passionately delivered mash-up between Dan and Diana that details patient-doctor dynamics, coping methods and the implications of medication. Haunting at some points and humorous at others, the song passes between the stirring perspectives of husband and wife: “Who’s crazy? The one who can’t cope? Or maybe the one who’ll still hope,” Dan sings sorrowfully. Later, he voices the same heartbreaking sentiment: “Who’s crazy? The one who’s uncured? Or maybe the one who’s endured.” His melodic ponderings are powerful in their brevity.

“Music can often act as a shorthand for emotion,” Hansen explained. “It is integral to conveying the emotional message.”

Meanwhile, Diana’s lyric prompted surprised laughs from the crowd: “My psychopharmacologist and I/Call it a lovers’ game/He knows my deepest secrets/I know his… name!” The number perfectly encapsulates Diana’s emotional vulnerability, as well as the strain of her illness on Dan’s sanity. As she rattles off an alphabet soup’s worth of medications – Zoloft, Xanax, Ambien, Prozac and more – alongside the falsely gleeful claim that “these are a few of my favorite pills,” the extent of her mental illness history becomes glaringly clear. Such is the context for the cascade of psychological trials to come.

As Diana’s condition spirals ever out of control, Natalie meets a boy: Henry, played by Steven Medina ’17, who has always admired her from afar. Their friendship soon blossoms into a romance. Natalie puts up a tough exterior at first, unwilling to let Henry witness her vulnerability. Slowly, however, she opens up her world to him. Sweet and thoughtful Henry becomes her safe space. When home becomes too unbearable for her, she turns to him. In a way, their connection may resemble a trite, escapist high-school relationship – but in many other senses, it is not. The scope of Natalie’s problems is absolutely jarring, and Henry helps her make sense of it all with an emotional maturity unparalleled by most other guys his age. Genuine and pure-hearted, he is effortlessly likeable.

Meanwhile, Guarino encapsulated Natalie’s personality with carefully calculated complexity. The character is defiant yet fragile, constantly lashing out but all the while hurting inside. It is a brashness stemming from internal pain that most people can relate to.

“If you want to put her in a box, then she is the angsty teenager. But she really isn’t that at all, because it’s so validated by everything she’s been through,” Guarino explained. “She’s been rejected and neglected her entire existence. Her parents don’t acknowledge her at all. She keeps trying to compensate for that by being good at everything, and that eats away at her slowly.”

The musical is littered with profanities, and justifiably so. Through relapses, rock bottoms and recoveries, life can be unbearably hard. Sometimes, it can even descend into “bullshit,” as Natalie puts it. Doctors deliver awful news, adults make questionable decisions and children crack under pressure. In the wake of Diana’s mental deterioration, Wooldridge convincingly embodied her despair and desperation – but there is more to her story than her suffering.

“She’s not always in the pits of despair. She has moments of humor and moments of levity. In a way, it makes the moments when she is depressed more impactful,” Hansen observed.

The entire show comes tinged with moments of dry humor, from jokes centering on the couple’s lackluster love life to deadpan looks from Diana’s psychiatrist Doctor Fine, played by Ben Oh ’17. And amidst the sad truths – the fallibility of medicine, the pain of letting go and the sheer chronicity of certain human conditions – positive realizations lie in wait. As the cast sings in the closing number, “Light,” “you don’t have to be happy at all to be happy you’re alive.”

Next to Normal is the story of one fictional family – but the point is that it could be any family. Diana could be anyone. Her devastating struggles, and the effects that they have on her loved ones, put the scope of mental illness in harrowing perspective.

“Especially in light of the recent tragedy that caught the Middlebury student body by such surprise, it is crucial that we take a step back to think about those struggling with such issues. Many people, our closest friends and family included, fight these battles alone and in silence,” Fine wrote in his Director’s Note.

Proceeds from the show went toward a scholarship fund at The Hotchkiss School in Nathan Alexander’s name. With countless individuals bearing invisible burdens each and every day, it is crucial that dialogue surrounding mental health be ever open and inclusive.

“There’s no right treatment. There’s no one narrative,” Hansen stated. “Medication, therapy or ECT doesn’t work for everybody. It’s an individual process with coming to terms with the underlying causes and how they manifest themselves in your life.”

“The point isn’t that there is an end of the road. The point is that the road can go off in many different directions and at the end of the day, we all need to care for ourselves,” Guarino added.

The characters of Next to Normal spend all their lives striving toward a seemingly unremarkable goal: normalcy – or as close to it as they can get. They do not ask for much, yet the road toward this modest objective is riddled with obstacles. So what can we afford to learn from their bittersweet story? Life is hard. Pain is inevitable. These are not new ideas, of course. But this rock-musical extends past existential wallowing to emphasize the value – and innateness – of human empathy. People care, and help is available. By channeling the comforting truths that all too often fall through the cracks of our consciousness, Next to Normal is a reminder of all there is to live for in this world. It is a heavy tale, but it is also an immensely important one, showing us that it may not be okay right now – but someday, somehow, it will be.