Next to Normal: Tracy Lynn Olivera and Sophia Early — Photo: Margot Schulman
Any and every one us in the audience for Alan Paul’s penetrating production of Next to Normal at Round House might know a woman like the show’s Diana Goodman. Maybe you’re related to her, or see her in the mirror.
You can see the truth of her embodied in the brilliant performance of Tracy Lynn Olivera, a D.C. theater treasure making her Round House debut as the suburban wife and mom struggling against grief, depression, and mental illness to find even some semblance of stability.
Soldiering by Diana’s side, and soaring alongside her through the Tony-winning score by composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Brian Yorkey, is her husband Dan, devoted yet often conflicted, portrayed by the equally esteemed Kevin S. McAllister.
So, Round House crowds are doubly blessed to see and hear such challenging roles essayed by those with the due talents, conviction, and gravity to send us scaling the raw, ragged mountains of emotion brought forth in Yorkey’s deftly plotted script.
Olivera and McAllister marry beautifully as onstage partners in Diana and Dan’s complicated, trying existence. Their bustling family dynamic, with teenage son Gabe (Lucas Hinds Babcock) and daughter Natalie (Sophia Early), is credibly set in the first number, “Just Another Day,” aided by effective intentional misdirection. They might seem like everything is “normal,” until the scene reveals Diana’s tenuous hold on reality.
Wilson Chin’s striking scenic design suggests that liminal space between reality and what’s happening in Diana’s head. In her tangible world, pill bottles spill to the floor, and doors slam with force. In “I Miss the Mountains,” she tries to toss out her meds and live with the peaks and valleys.
But in her thoughts, she’s haunted by pain she can’t process. Though Paul offers acute insight into her experience, employing a wall of video panels, featuring sometimes trippy projections designed by Nicholas Hussong.
The screens become a means of amplifying all the characters’ feelings, as well as the tension of Diana’s encounters with extreme medical intervention. The visual spectacle can distract from vital beats of song or dialogue, but the device adds a subtle tinge of horror that suits aspects of this probing portrait.
And throughout, Paul navigates the cast gracefully through delicate transitions from an average family’s quotidian rhythms into the dark, imaginary caverns of Diana’s struggles.
Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, her struggles reverberate through all their lives. Yet, she maintains a sense of humor, exemplified in the charmingly sardonic “My Psychopharmacologist and I.” As said psychopharmacologist, Calvin McCullough contributes his own deft comic timing to the number.
That song pairs with Dan’s more serious “Who’s Crazy,” with him contemplating his own struggles in this marriage, and McAllister beautifully relaying a spouse’s sense of duty and exhaustion. As their daughter, spiraling into her own chaos of drugs and confusion, Early captures Natalie’s justifiable defiance, alongside her deeply felt sadness.
The whole family’s understandably exhausted, while, paradoxically, the cast — including Ben Clark, who shines as Natalie’s amorous classmate Henry, in his “Hey” duets with Early — must tap into wells of stamina to put across Kitt and Yorkey’s challenging score and emotionally taxing narrative.
Probing universal truths about grief and depression via the very specific circumstances of one loving family, this Next to Normal pierces the heart, provokes vital conversation, and brings powerhouse performance and music to our ears.
Next to Normal (★★★★☆) runs through March 3 at Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Md. Tickets are $46 to $88, with discount options available, including free tickets for students ages 13 through college, and 2-For-1 Tuesdays.
In 1996, the original Twister stormed the summer box office, winding up as the year's second-highest-grossing movie (behind Independence Day). Directed by Jan de Bont, who was still riding high off the success of Speed, Twister was loud, action-packed, and, especially when viewed today, utterly of its time.
It's totally '90s Hollywood, from the treacly, faux-Spielberg score, to the glow of Helen Hunt's movie stardom, to the fact that the only non-white cast member among dozens of characters has just a single incidental line. There was plenty that filmmakers might do differently with a sequel.
The queens are fighting, fucking, partying, and serving fierce performances at the spirited Montréal drag bar centered in Sophie Dupuis' award-winning drama Solo.
At the bar is where Simon (Théodore Pellerin) meets Olivier (Félix Maritaud), and love takes over. Newly arrived from Paris, Olivier performs as La Dragona, a punk-styled genderfuck queen, who makes her debut at the club with an alluringly cocky lip-sync to an ice-cold electro track. Welcomed by his fellow performers with champagne and a night out after the show, Olivier immediately catches Simon's eye.
Ben Platt has been openly gay since at least the launch of his recording career five years ago. He's also essentially been out now for more than half of his life. Yet the 30-year-old artist and actor -- known for his work in Dear Evan Hansen, Pitch Perfect, and The Politician, to name only three prominent titles -- has never been quite as out and proud, nor as self-assured in his queer identity and sense of purpose, as he is now. It's what makes his newly released third album, Honeymind, so captivating and compelling.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
You must be logged in to post a comment.