Next To Normal, revisited

Last night, I went back to see Next To Normal with it's new cast and, I dare say, I think the show is better than it was before.  Headed up by real life married couple Marin Mazzie and Jason Daniely, I felt like this was more of a cohesive family unit than what I had seen the last time I visited the Goodman family.

The Tony winning score, written by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, sounds just as great as it did before.  The three-tiered set, designed by Mark Wendland,  is simple but used to great effect.  And the two cast members remaining from before, Adam Chanler-Berat and Louis Hobson, have settled even more into their roles of Henry and Dr. Madden/Dr. Fine but not to the point where either of them are "phoning it in."  If anything, I cared more about them this time around.

Kyle Dean Massey, steps into the role of Gabe replacing the excellent Aaron Tveit.  He reminds me a lot of Tveit in that, when he's on the stage you don't want to take your eyes off of him (and not just because he's pretty) because you want to know what he's up to.  Luckily, he's able to bring the presence needed to do that.

Meghann Fahy has taken over the role of Natalie, replacing Tony nominee Jennifer Damiano.  I have to say, I liked this Natalie better.  Fahy made me feel for Natalie and what she was having to deal with.  She didn't come across as just some angsty teen.  I could see more of the pain that had been causing her anger and fear of letting others get close.

When I saw the show last September, I didn't have the chance to see J. Robert Spencer, who was the original Dan Goodman.  I saw one of his understudies who was, pretty much, steamrolled by the rest of the cast.  I just thought that Dan was a wimp.  That didn't happen this time.  Jason Daniely brought the emotional punch needed to make Dan someone to root for.  You wanted him to make it through everything ok just as much as the rest of the family.  It probably didn't hurt that he has built in chemistry with his co-star.

Which brings me to Marin Mazzie, who has the unenviable task of taking the role of Diana from Tony winner Alice Ripley.  When I saw Alice in the show, she was truly a force of nature.  She was balls to the wall from the start and you were on the journey with her to the end.  There was no time to pay attention to the other family members.

This time, I thought, Mazzie took a different approach.  You don't quite know that there's anything wrong, at the beginning.  Mazzie brought subtleties to Diana that made me want to laugh or cry and not just be scared for her.  A song like "I Miss the Mountains" which I couldn't have cared less about the first time, was made a really moving moment in the show.  I also appreciated the fact that she gave me the chance to notice the other characters and what they were dealing with.  It wasn't JUST all Diana all the time.  You felt for the ENTIRE Goodman family.  I really thought she was amazing!

On a lot of the chat boards, there's been plenty of chatter about the fact that Mazzie isn't really a belter and that she's too much of a legit singer for the role.  I think those people are being overcritical.  While her voice does lack the edge that Alice had, all one has to do is look at her face and you feel Diana's pain and confusion about what's happening to her.  If anything, the only one whose voice might have been too "legit" was Daniely's.  But together, the two were a great pair on that stage.  The chemistry was great and this was a couple that you wanted to work out.

I thought the show was great the first time I saw but, I thought it was even better this time around.  It's been forgotten, lately, because everyone's been talking about A Little Night Music but, if don't want to or have already seen that one, get yourself to the Booth Theatre and check this out!

Until next time...