By GUILHERME YAZBEK
The Riverfront Theater Company is currently presenting the production that closes its Sapphire Season, celebrating the group’s impressive 65 years. Next to Normal premiered Off-Broadway in 2008 and, due to its success, entered the pantheon of American theater with a Broadway run in 2009, followed by a national tour—a true success story. Now, here in the Steel City in 2025, Next to Normal brings together the maturity of a decades-old community theater company and the artistic freshness of Surya Ravindran, who makes their directorial debut with this project.
The musical is compact in scale. Six actors form the cast, moving through short scenes on a small stage constructed inside the warehouse at Allegheny RiverTrail Park. Ravindran’s choice of a square stage—each side roughly 13 feet—with the audience seated on two sides proves to be an excellent directorial solution. The format allows the piece to unfold right before our eyes: it’s a pleasure to hear the actors’ voices so close, to catch every lift of an eyebrow, every subtle gesture. At the same time, the staging keeps us mindful that we are in a shared theatrical event, since just beyond the performers, we can see the opposite audience, who in turn can see us. In one particularly intense scene, for instance, I found my own emotional reaction mirrored in the expression of a man sitting directly across from me. Ravindran skillfully embraces the challenges of this unusual performance space, heightening the play’s already substantial dramatic power (more on that soon) while also foregrounding the communal, shared experience of theater.
A quick warning before I continue: this review contains plot spoilers.
Next to Normal is a family drama. We follow the not-so-peaceful daily life of a middle-class nuclear family struggling to navigate the intertwined challenges of grief and life itself, particularly regarding mental health. Diana, the mother and the central character—portrayed with sincerity and nuance by Randi Walker—suffers psychologically from the loss of her infant son, an event that happened many years earlier. The musical seems to draw a parallel between Diana and her daughter Natalie, performed brilliantly by Maria Perez. This parallel forms the play’s primary dramatic conflict: Natalie suffers from her mother’s emotional absence, while Diana lives with the unfillable void of having lost a child. The staging and the script work in tandem to create a kind of mirroring between the two. Both characters find support in their romantic partners: the not-quite-perfect-but-deeply-well-intentioned Henry (Danny Gavlik), who relates to Natalie; and Dan, Diana’s husband (Evan Krug). The cast is rounded out by Ethan Leicht as the son—who, though dead, remains a constant presence onstage, a key source of the play’s poetic and dramatic potency—and Bella Carstea, who masterfully portrays both doctors (a psychiatrist and a psychopharmacologist).
The names of Diana’s two clinicians hint at the show’s tone. The first, Dr. Madden (a clear play on “mad”), and the second, Dr. Fine (whose patients, arguably, are anything but “fine”). Next to Normal handles extremely delicate topics—grief and mental health—with levity and humor. The staging is strongest during the ensemble musical numbers, when a portion of the cast forms a chorus (regardless of their characters). Early on, a musical sequence seems to critique the over-medicalization of contemporary psychiatry: the cast, wearing lab coats, surrounds Diana with countless pill bottles—some even becoming percussion instruments in a number that is both comic and sharply critical. It’s here that Diana sings, “These are a few of my favorite pills!”—a playful parody of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music.
The minimalist set design, also by Ravindran, supports the production’s rapid scene transitions. A table, two small stools, and two modular shelves allow for quick creation of multiple locations (the home, the music room, the doctor’s office, and so on) while storing props within easy reach. One of the highlights of the production is the music, under the direction of Michael Meketa Sanchez, with a live band and a cast of impressive vocal technique. As is typical of musical theater, the songs allow characters to express what is difficult to articulate in words and to convey intense emotion through soaring high notes and harmonies—both of which brought tears to my eyes more than once. Music also helps bridge moments that escape realism, such as the recurring presence of Gabe, the already-dead son, singing his emphatic solo: “I’m alive, I’m so alive.”
Before closing this review, I want to offer a reflection on something that troubled me in Next to Normal (this was my first time seeing the show): a dramaturgical issue, in my view, and one that the direction here did not seem concerned with addressing. Diana, the central character, experiences mental-health crises tied to grief, and we see her in moments of impulsiveness and emotional upheaval. Natalie, her daughter, is depicted as a teenager suffering from an emotional void, resorting to illegally taking her mother’s medication in an attempt to dull her pain, and more than once being found vulnerable and alone at nightclubs. Two unstable female characters who deviate from normative expectations (white, bourgeois, heterosexual norms, it should be said). But fear not! (Irony intended.) Diana and Natalie are both rescued—steadily, patiently—by their male partners (white, heterosexual), who possess seemingly endless kindness and stability. The play’s text and this particular production do not allow us to see any real flaws in the male characters. What narrative are we reinforcing here?
In the scene when the romance between Natalie and Henry becomes official, a single line intensified my discomfort. Henry sings something along the lines of, “I’ll be perfect for you, so you can go crazy.” This reinforces an outdated, sexist stereotype: that women are more prone to madness—echoing the medical history of nineteenth-century hysteria and the long-standing pathologization of female bodies and minds as deviations from the norm. This, for me, is the issue: while Next to Normal critiques “normality”, it also, at times, seems to reinforce it. The final straw, for me, was the resolution of Dan’s arc. After being “abandoned” (poor thing!) by his wife, he is asked by Dr. Fine if he would like a referral (implicitly, to a therapist). His first response is “no.” But after a pause, he corrects himself: “yes.” And the audience can then breathe comfortably: the good, noble man has had the humility to seek help. Oh, please! I’m not suggesting rewriting Next to Normal—I wouldn’t want to, nor would it be my place. But we must remain critical and conscious of the narratives we uphold, hear, and repeat. We continue to reproduce sexist structures that depict women as fragile, unstable, inferior—when reality is far more complex.
Theater can, and should, tell whatever stories it wishes. But it is essential that we reflect critically on the narratives we perpetuate and on the cultural and generational impact these stories have.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Riverfront Theater Company’s production of Next To Normal has remaining performances on November 20, 21 & 22, 2025 at the Allegheny RiverTrail Park in Aspinwall inside the “Gem of the Allegheny” building – 285 River Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15215. Ticket Information: https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/riverfront-theater-company/rtc-presents-next-to-norma
Guilherme is a Brazilian theater practitioner and scholar, currently pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Reviews
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