Jo Ann Rosen

By their very nature, adaptations are familiar. Wonderland, the energetic and visually satisfying musical based on Lewis Carroll’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, pulls the story into the 21st century, relocates the characters to Queens, New York, and borrows enough music from award-winning productions to warrant a self-devised guessing game that might be called 'Name That Show.' This, in itself, becomes amusing when lyrics and tunes from the likes of Gypsy and The Music Man are incorporated into an early musical number. Less obvious, and perhaps inadvertent, references or melodic phrases pop up in subsequent songs that bring to mind Into the Woods, Jersey Boys, and Wicked—making the identity crisis in Wonderland more than Alice’s. Jack Murphy (lyrics) and Frank Wildhorn (music) are responsible. Still, the voices of the cast are uniformly good and there is a lot of razzle dazzle to push the plot forward, particularly in Act I.

The most amazing aspect of Next to Normal, the rock musical now moving audiences from cheers to tears and back again, is not the stellar cast or its precise direction; neither is it the imaginative lighting or the edgy set design—all working in harmony for a full and unexpected visual and emotional journey. Rather, it is the ability of Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics) and Tom Kitt (music) to empathetically capture what happens to a family when one of its members suffers from mental illness. The result is heartbreaking, frustrating, educational, and, yes, even funny.