Chance Theater treasure Jocelyn A. Brown delivers one of the year’s most stunning performances as a woman battling bipolar disorder in Next To Normal, earning much-deserved tears and cheers in the Chance’s 2022 season opener.

One of only ten musicals to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s Next To Normal introduces us to suburban couple Diana and Dan Goodman, long-married spouses who would, on the surface at least, appear to be heading “the perfect loving family.”

The Goodmans are far from even coming close.

That Diana (Brown) suffers from manic depression is something we begin to suspect from the moment she sets about scattering slice upon slice of bread on the kitchen floor, the better to speed up morning sandwich prep.

Zoloft, Paxil, Buspar and Xanax are just a few of the prescription meds prescribed by Diana’s shrink Dr. Fine (Ron Hastings), and though these drugs may have lessened her anxiety, their side effects have her wondering whether any gain is worth the pain.

Meanwhile, Dan (Tym Brown) does his best to hold the household together, seventeen-year-old Gabe (Jaylen Baham) brags that soon “the world will feel my power and obey,” and aspiring pianist Natalie (Angie Chavez), a year Gabe’s junior, has only music to maintain her relative stability.

When Diana decides to go it alone, sans shrink, sans drugs, sans annoying side effects, who should show up to meet the family but Natalie’s head-over-heels boyfriend Henry (Jared Machado), and a shocking revelation has us suddenly reevaluating all we’ve come to believe about this not even next-to-normal family.

 As deep and dramatic and gripping as the best contemporary two-act play (Yorkey wrote the musical’s Tony Award-nominated book), Next To Normal features a Tony-winning score (music by Kitt, lyrics by Yorkey) that combines rock rhythms, catchy melodies, and clever, insightful lyrics.

All of this adds up to a 21st-century musical that leaves an audience entertained, shaken, better informed about mental illness, and profoundly moved … and never more so than at the Chance, where Matthew McCray’s directorial choices are the very definition of inspired.

Of the ten productions of Next To Normal I’ve now seen, McCray’s cast is by far the most ethnically diverse, from Diana and Dan’s mixed marriage to their biracial children to Natalie’s Hispanic boyfriend, and a welcome change from the all-white touring cast that played the Ahmanson a dozen years ago.

McCray scores major points for a particularly imaginative use of scenic designer Joe Holbrook’s ingeniously multilevel set, and his decision to up Gabe’s stage presence left me breathless in at least two specific instances. (I’d dearly love to go into details if not for that pesky no-spoilers reviewer’s code.)

Baham and Chavez make such impressive Chance Theater debuts as the Goodman siblings that I’d be literally singing their praises if I had anything close to the gifted twosome’s thrilling pipes, and they’ve got acting chops to match.

Machado makes for the most appealing of nerd-next-door Romeos to Chavez’s initially resistant Juliet, Chance favorite Hastings delivers a finely-tuned, gorgeously sung supporting turn as two incisively differentiated psychiatrists, and Brown provides stalwart support as a man doing his best to cope under some very difficult circumstances.

Still, this is Jocelyn A. Brown’s Next To Normal all the way, her first Chance musical since The Last Five Years and Into The Woods way back in 2006, a performance so memorable I can’t help but wish we hadn’t had to wait a dozen years for her to once again dazzle as she did as Cathy and The Witch way back when.

The role of Diana is designed for star turns like a Tony-winning Alice Ripley’s on Broadway and at the Ahmanson, and Brown’s is one you can’t take your eyes off.

As an actress, she nails all of Diana’s wants and needs and hopes and fears, and the idiosyncrasies that make her as easy to love as she is frustrating to live with, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard the role sung more sensationally.

Stephen Hulsey earns top marks as both music director and keyboardist alongside Jacob Gonzalez on guitar, Sho Fujieda on drums/percussion, and (at the performance reviewed) Richard Lueras on bass.

Matt Schleicher lights the show with equal parts subtlety and flash (precisely what Next To Normal needs), Christina Perez’s costume choices are just right for each character (Natalie’s prom dress, in particular, would turn any Henry’s heart to mush), and Ryan Brodkin once again demonstrates why he is the Chance’s go-to sound designer, ably assisted by FOH mixer Hanna Jepsen.

Miguel Cardenas is assistant director. Wade Williamson is stage manager. Sophie Hall Cripe is dramaturg. Jessica James understudies the role of Natalie.

Whether you’ve seen as many different productions of Next To Normal as I have (possible but unlikely), or whether somehow or other you’ve missed its multiple previous incarnations, you won’t see a finer N2N than Chance Theater’s. (And let’s hope we don’t have to wait another dozen years for Jocelyn A. Brown to make musical theater magic at the Chance.)

Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills.
www.chancetheater.com

–Steven Stanley
February 12, 2022
Photos: Camryn Long, Doug Catiller

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Tags: Brian Yorkey, Chance Theater, Orange County Theater Review, Tom Kitt