Review: Next to Normal

Meet Diana Goodman.

Loving mom and devoted wife. Everything seems picture-perfect in their cozy little home. Their daughter Natalie is growing up to be a talented young girl.  but its her son that she had a special fondness for…  a son she lost in childbirth but is still very much alive in her mind, even more so than the rest of her family. Diana is bi-polar and her delusions are getting worse. She’s losing more of herself as the years go by. Pieces of her memory flitter in and out her consciousness as the drugs and electric shock therapies takes its toll. Her family tries to cope, but as her symptoms get worse, it becomes harder and harder to ignore.

Who’s crazy, the husband or wife?
Who’s crazy to live their whole life
Believing that somehow things aren’t as bizarre as they are?

Who’s crazy, the one who can’t cope?
Or maybe, the one who’ll still hope?

Soon the family must make a decision: continue to fight or let go.

Next to Normal is the Tony-Award winning stage musical about a family trying to cope with the ups and downs of having a loved one in the throes of mental illness. It mixes equal parts of pathos and dark comedy to narrate the tragedy of losing someone you love little by little until the familiar is all but replaced by the unrecognizable.

Mental illness is an issue rarely talked about. More often that not, instead of having a rational discourse on a subject matter as serious as this, people tend to couch it in humor. Jokes like “kung mahirap ka, ang tawag sa iyo sira-ulo. Kung mayaman ka, you’re eccentric” only help to mire the topic in myths and misconceptions.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about mental illness? A raving lunatic in a straitjacket or a psychotic killer from a horror film? Fact is, there are thousands of ways the brain can go wrong and just as many gradients of “normalcy”. But then again, what defines “normal”? What if you have an unusual phobia? an addiction or obsession perhaps, or maybe even a bout of depression now and then… what separates normal from abnormal then? With all the different personality quirks one can have, Who actually fits all the standards of normalcy?

I don’t need a life that’s normal
That’s way too far away
But something next to normal
Would be okay
Yeah, something next to normal
That’s the thing I’d like to try
Close enough to normal
To get by

The first time I saw this play two years ago, I found merely entertaining but I couldn’t relate much to it. The  show’s topic was controversial and it received mixed reviews from critics. Some called it exploitative, sensationalizing, or even trivializing the plight of those suffering from mental disorders. Others praised it for bringing to the mainstream a topic that is rarely discussed in polite conversation. How do you deal with someone who is manic-depressive, schizophrenic, or suffering from autism?

Should you empathize?

sympathize?

or just ignore their bizarre behavior altogether?

At that time, I treated the subject matter merely as a curiosity but years after I first saw the play, I actually met real people who are coping with mental illnesses… young people who’ve had the misfortune of having their brain chemistry misfiring at the prime of their lives, older relatives who are in various stages of dementia. The issue becomes even more painful when relatives and loved ones are involved.

The sensation that you’re screaming, but you never make a sound.
Or the feeling that you’re falling, but you never hit the ground.
It just keeps on rushing at you day by day by day by day.
You don’t know, you don’t know what it’s like to live that way.
Like a refugee, a fugitive, forever on the run.
If it gets me it will kill me, but I don’t know what I’ve done.

Suddenly, it became all that more real… the uncle who took you to the park when you were young now rocks to himself in his own little world, gibbering nonsensical phrases at phantoms only he can see, or that classmate from high school who now has to take medication for severe bouts of manic-depressive episodes… They’re no longer things you just see in the movies, it could happen to you… or people you know. And its that sinking realization of just how fragile our brains are that makes one question all the preconceived notions on consciousness and the sense of “self“. Are we just the sum total of the electrical impulses jumping from neuron to neuron? a glorified biological computer that can break down just as easily? and if something goes wrong with the circuitry, do we also say goodbye to our sense of self? And just how much of our personality is actually self-determined and how much is merely chemistry?

They tried a million meds and
They strapped me to their beds and
They shrugged and told me ‘that’s the way it goes.’
But finally you hit it!
I asked you just what did it.
You shrugged and said that no one really knows.

It becomes harder to consider the notion of a “soul” or a consciousness independent of our physical brains we realize that so much of our memories and personality is dependent on brain chemistry. The more we understand how the brain works – what drug influences which chemical reaction in the brain which in turn regulates a specific behavioral pattern, the less “mystical” it all becomes. In fact, its a sobering thought – realizing how easy it is to influence a person’s behavior either by nature or by design. Can you blame a person for being  immoral when his brain is telling him to act that way?

The story asks this very question – chemistry or consciousness? who’s really in control? Can you shock people’s brains back to a semblance of normalcy? (Even today, electro-shock therapy is still one of the viable options medical doctors consider to treat certain mental disorders). If one believes in the soul, does the soul turn crazy as well? Where then should be the focal point of treatment?

What happens if the medicine wasn’t really in control?
What happens if the cut, the burn, the break was never in my brain,
or in my blood, but in my soul

These and many other questions will fill your mind after watching this riveting drama.  If you want a story that’ll get you thinking about how we think, don’t miss out on this.

Next to Normal shows on March 11-27, 2011
Fri & Sat – 8pm, Sat – 2pm,

Sun – 3pm & (March 27)8pm

at the 4th Floor Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium RCBC Makati, Philippines

For more information, visit the show websites at:

http://www.atlantisproductionsinc.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Next-to-Normal-in-Manila-2011

9 comments

  1. How much is the ticket price?

    OT:
    I'm a newbie here and to atheism too.. I dont know if here is the right place to post this request.
    If someone can make a review out of the movie i watched last night titled 'THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU' by matt damon. I think guys here can relate to the story hehe.. Thanks!

    • it's like real life – there are no "happy" or "sad" endings… its the experiences and the lessons learned that mean more than how things turn out… at least that's my motto and I'm sticking to it.

  2. My family brought me to the Psychiatrist for the 1st time a little more than 10 yrs ago when I was dealing with issues about religion and the situation between my parents constant conflict. First, they thought that if they'd bring me to the United States of America that I would be back to my old self so that they could ignore me again like i wasn't there. What if you knew that if things go back to the way it was, you'd just be treated like nothing again. The people who were born before me were trying to control me before i become uncontrollable for them. I just wanted to have control over my own life and not be controlled by my family. Many of us know how Catholicism and Christianity can be so far from being normal that we do everything to get it out of our system. Most people can't even tell what is normal from what is abnormal.

    If you have the time or the interest in the psychiatric practice's role in some dark experiments done on human beings in the past. Go to this site: http://www.sntp.net/

    • sorry to hear what you had to go through. If its any consolation, organizations like the FF do provide mutual support for people who are having a hard time coming out of the atheist closet to their friends and family. Its the hope that when people share their own stories on how they resolved their differences of belief/non-belief with people close to them, it'll help other people figure out the "best" way to break the news to family without encountering too much backlash or negative reactions.

  3. watched it at opening night and will watch again.

    regarding the concept of "soul" in terms of this musical, i would rather think that they pertain to the fact that she was never able to move forward thus making it ingrained in her consciousness. medicines in psychiatry can only do so much. they just make you stable enough for you to face your challenges that you can't cope with at that moment in time.

    there's nothing mystical about it at all. it's a traumatic event or a realization of something that will trigger us to be insane and how we deal on it will bring the semblance of "sanity" or "normalcy".

    the chemistry explains the symptoms. how we were brought up to deal with the stresses of life (the highs but most especially the downs) explains what is "normal" for us and would explain the trigger.

    and yes, EVERYONE is predisposed into becoming "insane". all you need is that realization or event for it to go out.

    • haven't watched the local production yet, going to see it over the weekend, glad to know its getting good feedback as well 🙂 Alice Ripley was amazing as Diana Goodman and I'm excited to see how Menchu's going to interpret the character.

      that's a good point you bring up regarding the "spirituality" versus the "science" of disease. sometimes you have to fix not only what's wrong on the physiological side but on the non-physical as well. Guilt is a powerful anchor which keeps us from moving on. How people around us react to our suffering also makes a powerful impression on our coping mechanisms. Sometimes they think they're helping but its actually making things worse when they themselves have their own unresolved demons. The last scene in the story is very telling on so many levels.

Leave a reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here