Theater review Next to Normal works so well in terms of music that the performance makes the mind close to the eyes – everything else is more or less bad

Culture|Theater review

Musical

Next to Normal. Svenska Teatern’s press premiere 4.11. Swedish by Linnea Sjunnesson and Fredrik Fischer, a musical written by Brian Yorkey and composed by Tom Kitt. Directed by Markus Virta, staged by Erik Salvesen, costumes by Teemu Muurimäki, disguised by Joonas Lampi, lights by Tom Kumlin, sound design by Andreas Lönnquist. Conductor Kristian Nyman. In the roles Maria Ylipää, Alexander Lycke, Sannah Nedergård, David Lindell, Pontus Simm, Denny Lekström. ★★★

Tom Kittin composed by and Brian Yorkey musical by Next to Normal is such a precisely full – bodied work that its music itself contains almost everything necessary.

The pros and cons of implementing Svenska Teatern can easily be connected to that one idea.

Music, of course, needs its performers and in Svenskan this aspect is handled excellently.

The six actors in the musical are expressive singers who coped handsomely with all the undeniably awkward quintets and sextets of the work.

Kristian Nymanin the orchestra, led by, achieves the same precision, though the players are again apparently placed somewhere in the basement and the tempo gets repeatedly loud. In the case of music, therefore, it is not appropriate to forget the person responsible for sound design Andreas Lönnquistin a key contribution to the success of the whole.

Everything else in the show is more or less bad.

Great stage fully loaded with anything that merely repeats, underscores, or otherwise illustrates things that become apparent.

The tensions between the people become enormous when the Actors have to work around all sorts of everyday chores all the time, along with singing. The endless hanging of overcoats on hangers, the collection of counters and the drawing of curtains also interfere with the viewer’s attention.

The stage is so full of all sorts of levels, stairs, furniture and items that Actors threaten to completely disappear into the staging.

Next to Normal tells of an almost ordinary family of four. The parents are architects, the daughter is a schoolboy experiencing first love and the son is a ubiquitous winch.

However, not everything is what it looks like at first glance.

Without revealing the plot too much, one could say that the mother has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which as the story progresses is sought to be treated with varying methods.

Next to Normal received tremendous attention for its exceptional subject matter and form when the work premiered in New York in 2008. The Pulitzer Prize-winning musical was seen two years later at the Helsinki City Theater Markku Nenonen under reduced direction, after which it was quickly grabbed by Wasa Teater and Tampereen Työväen Teatteri.

Svenska Teaternin The interpretation is clearly built on the musical of the parents performing Maria Ylipään and Alexander Lycken after all, they played the main roles in a memorable way Chess in Swedish in a musical on this same stage a few years ago.

The head again, as a performer, holds his side well this time, although his character is not particularly able to develop in any direction, but Lycke’s role work does not differ much from the thunderstorms of amusement plays.

Swedish director Markus Virta does not seem to have fully relied on Yorkey and Kitt’s work. Or he has thought that the audience wants to see all sorts of nice fuss on stage and also experience a happy ending.

The work really has the potential to go deep into the viewer’s feelings, now there is at most a little movement on offer.

The performance is certainly best enjoyed by sitting with your eyes closed, which is of course a bit of a bad starting point for the theater experience.