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Next to Normal
Mar. 13th, 2011 01:42 amWell, before there was an earthquake on Thursday, there was a musical.
I went downtown and got lunch and went to the 5th Avenue Theater and bought tickets for Next To Normal (I talked my way into "special email price" tickets in the 2nd row for $50 each) and then waited for Carl, who almost didn't show up on time -- I'd talked to the ushers at the door about what to do and they said that at 1:30 they'd just stop letting people in to their real seats, there'd be a 9-minute hold and you'd get seated in the back. But Carl showed up at 1:28pm so it was fine.
The show itself was really pretty wacky. First, it's a rock musical of sorts -- think along the lines of Rent if anything, although this was certainly a lot more "musical" than Rent was to some extent. There were guitars and drums but also violins and pianos. (Not a very big pit and in this case they actually had the musicians on stage in unused parts of the "house" set rather than a traditional pit.)
Though in addition to only having 7 or 8 musicians, they also only had 6 cast members. The show is about a family -- technically a mother, father, and daughter, son... and the daughter's boyfriend and the mother's doctor. And that's it. I'm not really sure what I can say about it without spoilers, aside from that it's kind of interesting having a show where one character doesn't actually exist and is a hallucination by another character. I guess one thing I was really struck by was by how it's very timely, that's not really the right word, but I mean, this musical wouldn't have and couldn't have been written 20 years ago, maybe not even 10. Lots of profanity and situations that you just wouldn't put on a musical stage before Rent came along.
The subject matter is kinda disturbing (bipolar mother undergoing treatment, and the effect on her family, basically) but overall a lot of the music is amusing and good (though there were a few times where I was like "This scene would actually probably work better WITHOUT music"). The stage was used very well to have a feeling of being in this crazy family's house, too.
I guess the only thing is, I'm more a fan of more traditional musicals -- I kind of want to come to the theater and hear a great orchestra and see tap dancing and big foofy costumes and whatnot. The 5th is doing a production of Aladdin in a few months and I'm interested to see how that gets staged, I'm betting it'll be a crazy set.
Anyway, after the musical we went through the downtown wind tunnel and to Trabant for some chai. In the evening, I stopped by Fred Meyer to get some salad bar for dinner; and I went and investigated their display of easter candy, and bought a whole bunch to take to friends in Japan. Of course, when I came home, that's when I discovered the BIG EARTHQUAKE had struck. Argh.
I went downtown and got lunch and went to the 5th Avenue Theater and bought tickets for Next To Normal (I talked my way into "special email price" tickets in the 2nd row for $50 each) and then waited for Carl, who almost didn't show up on time -- I'd talked to the ushers at the door about what to do and they said that at 1:30 they'd just stop letting people in to their real seats, there'd be a 9-minute hold and you'd get seated in the back. But Carl showed up at 1:28pm so it was fine.
The show itself was really pretty wacky. First, it's a rock musical of sorts -- think along the lines of Rent if anything, although this was certainly a lot more "musical" than Rent was to some extent. There were guitars and drums but also violins and pianos. (Not a very big pit and in this case they actually had the musicians on stage in unused parts of the "house" set rather than a traditional pit.)
Though in addition to only having 7 or 8 musicians, they also only had 6 cast members. The show is about a family -- technically a mother, father, and daughter, son... and the daughter's boyfriend and the mother's doctor. And that's it. I'm not really sure what I can say about it without spoilers, aside from that it's kind of interesting having a show where one character doesn't actually exist and is a hallucination by another character. I guess one thing I was really struck by was by how it's very timely, that's not really the right word, but I mean, this musical wouldn't have and couldn't have been written 20 years ago, maybe not even 10. Lots of profanity and situations that you just wouldn't put on a musical stage before Rent came along.
The subject matter is kinda disturbing (bipolar mother undergoing treatment, and the effect on her family, basically) but overall a lot of the music is amusing and good (though there were a few times where I was like "This scene would actually probably work better WITHOUT music"). The stage was used very well to have a feeling of being in this crazy family's house, too.
I guess the only thing is, I'm more a fan of more traditional musicals -- I kind of want to come to the theater and hear a great orchestra and see tap dancing and big foofy costumes and whatnot. The 5th is doing a production of Aladdin in a few months and I'm interested to see how that gets staged, I'm betting it'll be a crazy set.
Anyway, after the musical we went through the downtown wind tunnel and to Trabant for some chai. In the evening, I stopped by Fred Meyer to get some salad bar for dinner; and I went and investigated their display of easter candy, and bought a whole bunch to take to friends in Japan. Of course, when I came home, that's when I discovered the BIG EARTHQUAKE had struck. Argh.
