Six characters in search of closure

MANILA, Philippines - An important, ground-breaking musical theatrical production has just ended its repeat run the past weekend (first staged last March) with the mounting by Atlantis Productions of the acclaimed Broadway rock musical Next to Normal at Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City. The theater piece has won Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for drama, the past two years. The honors are richly deserved for it is an outstanding theater piece that incorporates serious themes and rock music into the story.

It dramatizes the thin line between grief that wouldn’t go away and what the medical profession calls bipolar disorder, a psychological condition that is “next to normal.” Not a cheery theme for a musical. But as staged by Atlantis under the helm of Bobby Garcia — with a terrific cast, Next to Normal kept the local audience in awe and thrall in spite of these heavy, deeply disturbing themes.

At the center of the story is a mother in turmoil, her next-to-normal psychological state allowing her to live normally and do household chores but only when she takes her daily bagful of psychopharmacological medicines. When she skips those meds, she becomes unbearable to her husband and daughter who realize that she is a person traumatized by a death in the family.

Along the way, the show introduces or takes up several other issues: Keeping the memory or memories alive or erasing them, maintaining coherence as a family unit during extremely trying times, and the horror of some medical procedures, chiefly electroshock therapy (which brings up the age-old notion of the cure being worse than the symptoms).

When the actors sing — together or solo, the audience is mesmerized by the songs and the music, which are at turns heartwarming and heartbreaking. The songs express genuine human emotions like anguish, fear and fright, and despair in so highly-lyrical and musical terms that they rise to the level of true opera.

Other than this, theatrical elements keep the spirit alive: The occasional dancing (choreographed by Chari Arespacochaga), the lighting (Shoku Matsumoto) and functional stage design, and the actors’ awesome performances. The ensemble is led by Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo as the tormented soul Diana, a woman whose “normalcy” is belied by her strange behavior. Menchu has been dubbed First Lady of Philippine Musical Theater, having proven her worth with an impressive body of work as both director (West Side Story and the current Peter Pan) and actress in mostly musical shows (The Sound of Music, Evita, West Side Story, the straight play Proof). Could Menchu be First Lady of Philippine Theater as well?

With her are reliable, topnotch co-actors: Jett Pangan (as the husband Dan) whose singing voice and technique makes one gasp over his effortless switch from being a hot rocker to a cool, admirable musical actor; Felix Rivera (the son Gabe), himself a young veteran of several stage musicals, with a powerful voice; Bea Garcia (Natalie) who conveys the frustrations of a gifted daughter with poignancy amid such a family crisis.

Outside the family are Jake Macapagal as the maddening Dr. Madden and the just-fine Dr. Fine, and Pilipinas Got Talent finalist Markki Stroem whose Henry is arguably the least challenging of the roles, his importance to the play attached to Natalie’s. The only level-headed character in the sextet, Henry poses the risk of blandness and one-dimensionality but Stroem, happily, makes him interesting, sympathetic, sweet and likeable.

We learn that before this version of Next to Normal, it was a show with a cutesy title and number “Feeling Electric,” which sounds like ‘80s Americana (remember I Sing the Body Electric from the musical Fame, and Electric Dreams?). This early work-in-progress criticized more harshly and thoroughly the medical establishment. But as the creative talents behind the show followed the wise, age-old adage in writing — that to come up with the best, one must rewrite, rewrite and rewrite — the final, current version of Next to Normal, as we see it now, has shifted its focus more on the characters, the family, their interrelationships, the nearly next-to-impossible coming to terms with the past, the ghosts they must exorcise from their consciousness, and the love and healing they seek.

This focus keeps the actors aground and alive, as they breathe life and music to six characters in search of a closure. Next to Normal is next to nothing as a psychological rock opera — sad and wistful, haunted and haunting. It will hound viewers for a long time.