Review: Next to Normal, Starring Caissie Levy, on PBS's Great Performances

Serotonin and dopamine are the Gods who routinely humiliate us, mocking our contemporary notion of free will. For all of humanity’s astounding scientific achievements, the chemistry of the brain remains mysterious and largely beyond our control.

That’s certainly true in Next to Normal, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical by Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics), which last year played London’s West End (after a run at the Donmar Warehouse) in a new staging directed by Michael Longhurst. That production has been stunningly captured for Great Performances on PBS, complete with close-ups that not even front-row audience members could enjoy. Directed for the screen by Longhurst and Austin Shaw, it’s as good as it gets, as far as film captures of stage performances go.

Next to Normal debuted in 2005 with the New York Musical Festival under the title Feeling Electric. After a workshop period, it reappeared as Next to Normal off-Broadway in 2008, transferring to Broadway in 2009. Kitt and Yorkey wrote it in a time before the mass adoption of smartphones and social media, the scapegoats du jour for widespread depression. But its story compellingly shows that the source of our unhappiness is much older and deeper, and that not everyone can easily overcome it with drugs and a can-do attitude.

Dan Goodman (Jamie Parker) is a mind-over-matter guy. He’s a solidly upper-middle-class graduate of Columbia University with a nervous daughter, Natalie (Eleanor Worthington-Cox), on her way to Yale. These busy meritocrats are what the author Richard Reeves calls “dream hoarders,” junior partners in the ruling class of this empire (and the core Broadway audience) who enjoy a level of comfort above their fellow Americans, but who also instinctively understand that their precarious status requires consistent excellence—or at least its illusion.

We hear that loud and clear in the song “Just Another Day,” which features Dan, Natalie, Dan’s wife Diana (Caissie Levy), and their teenage son Gabe (Jack Wolfe) rushing around their tastefully decorated contemporary home (scenic design by Chloe Lamford). But why did Gabe come home in the early morning hours? And why is Diana furiously assembling sandwiches on the kitchen floor?

Diana suffers from delusional bipolar disorder, for which she has been prescribed a complex cocktail of mood-altering drugs, which Gabe encourages her to flush down the drain. But is he even real, or just another hallucination?

As Diana’s mental breakdown worsens, Dr. Madden (Trevor Dion Nicholas) enters the scene, recommending intense talk therapy and hypnosis. When that fails, he tries electroconvulsive therapy, which leads to profound memory loss. Perhaps, Dan suspects, he can fill those gaps with the happy memories of the perfectly well-adjusted wife he always wanted.

It’s easy to see why Next to Normal struck a chord with the Broadway audience. Tuneful and darkly humorous, it touches a third rail of mental health discourse and refuses to let go. Longhurst’s tight production takes advantage of the natural economy of Yorkey’s book, with actors popping of the fridge to shake pills bottles like maracas in Ann Yee’s hilarious and surreal choreography. It’s the kind of show that delights longtime fans of musical theater while expanding the range of subjects that often-lighthearted form can address.

It also requires acrobatic vocal performances from its six-person cast, all of whom deliver here. The magnificently twitchy Worthington-Cox radiates anxiety as Natalie, so much so that I was slightly relieved when she finally toked up with her stoner boyfriend Henry, whom Jack Ofrecio endows with a glazed-over chill that is a 180-degree contrast (opposites attract, I suppose). Nicholas easily fits into the role of the “scary rockstar” Diana sees him as. But he’s not nearly as terrifying as Wolfe, who is both alluring and menacing.

Parker approaches his role with the HR-approved insistence of a management consultant who is certain he can stave off the effects of the Trump tariffs if he can only get everyone at the company to work five percent harder. Diana may be officially diagnosed as delusional, but he refuses to see what is obvious: The old way of doing things is no longer working.

But at the center is Levy, who gives a frighteningly convincing performance of a women who is both mentally unstable and intelligent enough to know how to make her delusions seem rational. Fans of Alice Ripley, who originated the role, might be disappointed by the muted quality of Levy’s performance, but I found it a stronger choice based in an undeniable truth. The mentally ill live and work among us, and it’s not always obvious who they are.

In many ways, Next to Normal feels timelier in 2025, when “trust the science” hubris has receded, predictably leaving Americans more suspicious of medical experts than they were two decades ago. But there are no villains in Next to Normal, a musical about people doing the best they can with the crude tools at their disposal. It approaches this subject with humility and grace, qualities that have become increasingly rare onstage and in life.

Next to Normal will debut on PBS on Friday, May 9 at 9pm. Check your local listings or watch it streaming.