Next to Normal Starring J. Robert Spencer Shines at Arena Stage!
December 12th, 2008
Peter Marks of the Washington Post notes that they should be handing out tissue boxes with the programs at “Next to Normal,” the melodic and blisteringly honest new musical at Arena Stage.
The potent feelings are released by something inordinately powerful in the music and the story, which have been meticulously woven together by the songwriting team of Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey. For despite its medical-issue-of-the-moment orientation — the principal feature of this tale of suburbia is a bipolar mom — “Next to Normal” manages to shift its focus to a phenomenon far from clinical: what it means truly to miss someone.
Alice Ripley (as Diana) is a marvel of off-center magnetism, utterly convincing as a woman who knows something is wrong but becomes ever more unsure what getting better is supposed to mean. She handles Diana’s anguished ballads as if each might help to quell her troubled psyche. Spencer provides a superb account of a husband who, as he observes in song, has done right by Diana, waiting patiently for the sky to clear.
Visit Washington Post for the full outstanding review. Congratulations and all the best to Bobby!
Congratulations to Bobby on this production! We sure hope Next to Normal will come to Broadway!
Comment by Karen — December 14, 2008 @ 8:40 pm
Congratulations Bobby! It is lovely – and not at all surprising, of course – to see such glowing reviews of your work. Enjoy the rest of the run and I look forward to seeing you in New York and/or Los Angeles again before long!
Comment by Deborah Hurwitz — January 3, 2009 @ 1:10 pm