Tonight (Friday) was the opening of Slow Burn Theatre’s Next To Normal performed at West Boca High and I had the pleasure of attending and viewing the outstanding enactments by six local remarkably brilliant actors.
Manifesting a seemingly “dysfunctional” family, the musical opens with a song “Just Another Day” as we are introduced to the characters and each of their individual issues that ultimately take over and strain the family of any stability that they later try to hold on to.
Introduced first are the four members of the family: Diana (Sharyn Peoples) is an emotionally unstable mother incessantly haunted by a painful memory from her past and Dan (Matthew Korinko) is the father who has to somehow hold the family together when her escalating meltdowns begin to tear the family apart.
Diana’s excessive anxiety starts to take a toll on her daughter Natalie (Anne Chamberlain) and her strenuous teenage life.
Eventually, each character—half tormented by their own struggles and half by Diana’s condition—must learn how to hold themselves together when things take a turn for the worse.
One of the most significant lines in the play was during the climax after Diana and Natalie’s last duet: “Not normal, but something next to normal to get by.”
On a modern life perspective, the play represented several “real life” issues such as depression, death of a family member, isolation, the overbearing stresses of everyday life and how they can wound a family and portray a “far from normal” household…with plot twists that will astonish you.
Doctor and therapist (Clay Cartland) attempts to guide Diana out of her rapidly deteriorating mental state and brilliantly represents the agonizing battle of someone suffering from a true mental illness.
With a live orchestra backstage, the song numbers were as brilliant as the voices of the actors that sang them.
The set and lighting were also exceptional in putting the show together.
This musical is a must-see and it will remind you that sometimes a lot of us are a little dysfunctional—and that’s okay.
In the words of Henry (Jason Edelstein), “Crazy is perfect.”
(Press photos will be up tomorrow, once I get ahold of a computer with a CD drive.)
