By Mary Brassard
In Ogden, the Ziegfeld Theater is currently showing the Tony Award-winning Next to Normal, by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt. I am still thinking about the many themes and elements to this remarkable show. Next to Normal is a relatively new musical about a modern-day family’s struggle (struggle is an understatement…) with loss and mental illness. It is a Pulitzer Prize winning book musical, and it’s easy to see why. You will leave with many things to think about, and it may even thrust you into deep reflection of your own experiences with family, depression, and grief.
I have seen a handful of productions at The Ziegfeld Theater in the past few years and they never fail to impress me. The lobby is decorated in a retro theater type theme. The smell of popcorn fills the air, and it all serves to put you in a very show going mood as soon as you walk in the door. The theater has comfortable seating, plenty of leg room, and as it is a large rectangle all facing the raised stage, there are no bad sight lines. It seems to me that the Ziegfeld has a great reputation for producing quality theater, and their production of Next to Normal makes it easy to understand why.
The Ziegfeld production staff seem to be masters at gathering phenomenal talent. From the band, to the cast, even the stage crew, there is not a weak link on that stage. Every person involved is extremely talented, and clearly invested in mounting a show to remember.
The set design by Caleb Parry and Rick Rea was very creative, and served the show very well. Instead of showing us a completed home set, we see a set with major pieces, such as stairs and kitchen table, but with the markings of what everything should be. For example, a door to the kitchen, with a sort of blue print, written on the wall, with drawn out mapping of where things should be, i.e. sink, kitchen island. It fit the story well as I felt it mirrors the family’s quest to become the type of family they think they “should” be. It is a very functional set as well, the stairs are seamlessly turned around mid-scene, and you smoothly go from outside the home to inside. I applaud the stage crew/ensemble for these effortless feeling transitions. They were even singing harmonies occasionally while changing a set and bringing us from a dining room to a bedroom.
The costumes also impress, designed by Alicia Kondrick. The modern costumes don’t distract, but help us understand the characters better. The mother’s clothing choices seemed to me to be everyday mom clothes, but with a hint of giving up, loose-fitting sweatshirts, dull colors, and a final costume that helped me understand where she might be in her journey to healing. The daughter also has similarly thoughtful costumes. Her clothes echo to us where her head is in those moments. She starts out in what I imagine to be typical teenage girl attire, and the changes in her dress seemed to relay a teen trying on new shells, and finding where she may fit in the world.
Director Rick Rea put together a well-paced, creative adaptation of this show. Several creative choices really stood out to me. I loved the use of props in “Who’s Crazy/Psych, Pharmacologist and I” and the physicality of the family’s embraces. It all feels very seemless. There are no clunky moments that jerked me out of the reality. Everything manages to feel natural and heavy (which I believe we are meant to feel). But that being said, there are several light moments, specifically in the first act, that helped to settle us in to these heavy moments. These chuckles I credit to the director and not the script, because it seemed to be a timing to these moments. For instance, the mother’s sandwich-making on the floor. That could have been read with only a thick sadness, but we are given a much more lifelike deepness to these scenes, and the fluctuation in tone, much like in real life, leaves us with a lot of anxiousness in deciding what the severities of this family’s problems might be. It lets us unfold the layers of the plot, and the mother’s mind, rather than saying to the audience, “Look, this is sad.” This is difficult for me to try to articulate into words, as Rea is so clearly above my level of theatrical intellect, and it’s not always clear to the crowd how exactly he achieves these moments, but achieve them he does. I would recommend you seek him out for a stimulating discussion on his thought process throughout this project, but, sadly for us, (but excitingly for him) the program informs us that he has left Utah for New York, to work full-time in his theatrical pursuits. He will no doubt find success.
The actors in this show are stunning to watch. This show is a musical and also an intricate drama. This means that casting required actors with great musical talent, as well as dramatic acting capabilities. This is a difficult task I imagine. Well done, Ziegfeld Theater, for being a company that attracts such talent.
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Shawnee Kennington as Diana, the broken matriarch of the family, is a marvel. She has a very strong and powerful singing voice. One thing that I loved about her singing, was that she simgs in a very unfettered way. She sings with such unbridled emotion, I wasn’t distracted by moments of her “trying to sing pretty”. She has a pretty singing voice, yes. What I mean by this is she lets go and allows the character to sing out these emotions in such a way that feels like a large, vocal expression of emotion. Her acting is dauntingly deep and real. She shows an emotional range that I imagine must take a lot out of her every night. It seemed so real to me, like I was watching a mother go through the worst moments imaginable right in front of my eyes, rather than watching a good actress show us what that must be like. She is living it in front of us.
Craig Williams as Dan, the husband and father in a family rocked by tragedy is brilliant. His voice is rich and full of feeling. As he sings, he still shows us his full experience in his extraordinarily expressive face. Even without dialogue, I could always find his him onstage, and see the suffering or hope twisting him up inside. He is also so genuine in his physical interactions with his family. When he embraces Diana, I was overcome with his feelings of desperation, love, and emotional exhaustion. Such a well-rounded actor.
Hailee Olenberger as Natalie, the daughter, and in my humble opinion, the most tragically victimized character of the piece is magnificent. I think that if I had to choose a favorite performance in the show (a near impossible task), it would be Olenberger. Hey singing voice is so beautiful. Her performance of “Superboy and the Invisible Girl” is a standout of Next to Normal in Ogden. Her voice being so beautiful leans very well to the tragedy of watching this character being tossed aside and damaged. It made me feel what I think you often feel about youth, she is so wonderful and there is so much potential in her young life, please don’t ruin it. She with her lovely voice are a shiny new penny, and you don’t want to see it tarnished by events and actions she has no control over. She portrays a young character that also seemed to have a wisdom in her—she brought me hope. This is an interesting balance to achieve: Imagine being told to act young, but wise. That seems like a tricky thing to me as an actor, to embody wisdom without tarnishing the believability of her youth, and she delivers.
Tanner Hora as Gabe, the brother of the family is haunting and powerful. If you are familiar with the story, you know what a complicated character he is. If you aren’t, I don’t want to ruin it for you. I am writing this review about 17 hours from curtain call, and I am still thinking about, and trying to figure out my feelings about this character. I am still having conversations with myself in my head about what his character means, and what we were meant to ascertain from his presence and interactions. Well, there you have it, Horan gives a performance so complex, you will grapple with it for days. His singing voice is also wonderful, and specifically, his performance in “I’m Alive” was so intense, that I can’t quite get it out of my mind. His body movements, and the pointed tone with which he sings the song is like an attack. It is a powerful performance that still has me exploring its full meaning. Well done. I think that’s what a show like this is meant to do, give you much to reflect on, and have you questioning things you thought you already had opinions about, and his performance gives us this.
Cooper Lavallee plays Henry, Natalie’s sympathetic suitor. To put it simply, I love him. He is incredibly genuine in his performance. I would say that Lavallee probably has the least strong singing voice in the cast, but this added very positively to the character. He is the only character participating in this tornado of suffering completely by choice, and by giving us a simpler vocal performance than the rest, it makes him stand out as character who stands among the broken family from the outside, bringing a calmness, and a purely motivated open heart. He is so beautifully open and sincere in his performance.
Jake T. Holt as Dr. Fine/Dr. Madden gives us a very strong performance as well. He has a strong clear voice, and in the sceneswhere it was needed, one with authority. He also could have just given us a character easy to dislike. But his performance gives us room to discover for ourselves what is right, and what the character of the doctor ultimately means. He absolutely shines in the scene that introduces Dr. Madden as a doctor who may also be a rockstar, his transitions in tone are so brilliantly executed, that just like Diana, his patient, I wasn’t sure if I should believe what I was seeing. That could have been a sloppy number so easily, but Holt delivers it perfectly.
In this production, there is a live band on stage and I enjoyed them very much. There were string instruments in the band, and I loved the classical and foreboding element this brought to the rock style music. And I have to mention tech designer and operator Eliza Haynie. Tech was flawless. Sometimes when a live band is used, I have trouble hearing the actors over the music. This was never the case. The audio is so very well-balanced, and there wasn’t a single moment of mistake from tech. Very impressive.
Obviously, I liked The Ziegfeld Theater’s production of Next to Normal. Go and see it. It is a great opportunity to see deep and professional quality theater at an extremely affordable price. The show will have you reeling with emotion. This show contains adult themes and language, so keep that in mind. The Ziegfeld Theater has given us something they can be proud of.
The Ziegfeld Theater presents Next to Normal by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt The Ziegfeld Theater, 3934 S. Washington Blvd., Ogden, UT 84403 Playing through October 1st. Mon, Fri, Sat 7:30 PM Saturday matinee at 2:30 PM Tickets: $17-20 Contact: 855-ZIG-ARTS / 855-944-2787 The Ziegfeld Theater Facebook Page
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