Next to Normal (2025)

PBS has been doing a round of Great Performances proshot recordings, and I was bowled over by this new West End production of Next to Normal. I remember loving the original cast recording back in the day, and I’ve seen the show twice onstage—once in a national tour and once in a regional production. But I’m absolutely in love with this version of the show!

Diana appears at first glance to be Super Woman—she keeps her nice house in order, manages the lives of her two teenagers, and always makes time for a bit of fun with her breadwinner husband. However, Diana spins like a manic record, and when the needle slips, the entire family is thrown off-kilter. She’s spent 16 years living with mental illness, and it seems she only ever gets a grip on hope so it can be torn away from her. A “blip” early in the show sends her in pursuit of yet more treatments, more faceless doctors who poke and prod her even as they admit they don’t know what they’re doing.

Any new production of a familiar musical is of course going to lean heavily on its cast, so let’s start there. Although I know a lot more about Broadway actors than those on the West End, this cast is pretty evenly split between actors I know and actors I’m seeing for the first time. Caissie Levy, who played Elsa in the stage adaptation of Frozen, stars as Diana. It’s a grounded, complex performance that anchors the show so well, guiding us through Diana’s haphazard journey. Former History Boy Jamie Park plays her husband Dan. Although he isn’t the strongest singer in the cast, his acting is excellent as the man who’s desperately trying to hold his family together. And Jack Wolfe is fantastic as their son Gabe—such an interesting performance, a very different interpretation of the character than Aaron Tveit’s, and his singing is great. (Side note: prior to seeing this production, I tended to mix up Jack Wolfe and Joe Locke—I think because their names have some vague similarities and they both played queer characters on recent genre shows? At any rate, I went into this recording thinking I was going to see Billy from Agatha All Along, but it was Wylan from Shadow and Bone instead!)

As for the actors who are new to me, Eleanor Washington-Cox is a standout as Diana and Dan’s daughter Natalie, a raw nerve of a girl who’s just trying to survive her unstable household. Jack Ofrecio is equal parts sweet and funny as Natalie’s would-be boyfriend Henry, and Trevor Dion Nicholas is effective as Diana’s doctors. The whole cast plays off each other so well.

The staging and direction are really neat. The set is mainly centered around the family’s kitchen, which becomes different locations as needed, and it makes good use of stairs and a few raised levels for the characters to move throughout the stage. The way Gabe interacts with other members of the cast is fascinating—also, the choice to give him a hand mic during “I’m Alive” is inspired. There are some great moments where characters’ presence during songs they aren’t in adds so much, like Natalie listening from the stairs as her parents argue in “You Don’t Know / I Am the One.”

Basically, this production grabbed hold of my brain at a time when I thought I was pretty full up, but it wouldn’t let go. Luckily, the cast recording for this production is out now, so I can satiate myself that way, and I’ve taken to just leaving PBS in an open tab on my laptop, so I can put it on whenever I’m washing dishes or folding laundry. Achievement unlocked!

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including suicide,) language, drug use, and sexual references.