Girl, Interrupted review – mental health memoir reborn as patchy Aimee Mann-soundtracked musical
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Review Girl, Interrupted review – mental health memoir reborn as patchy Aimee Mann-soundtracked musical The Public Theater, New York Susanna Kaysen’s retelling of her time in a psychiatric hospital in the 60s became an Oscar-winning movie in the 90s and now it’s an elegant, if limited, play Richard Lawson Thu 4 Jun 2026 21.15 EDT Share Prefer the Guardian on Google In 2021, the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann (perhaps best known, as a solo artist, for her contributions to the Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia) released an album called Queens of the Summer Hotel, a collection of somewhat narrative tunes inspired by Susanna Kaysen’s bestselling memoir of mental health struggle, Girl, Interrupted. Mann had been commissioned to write the songs for a stage adaptation that took years (and the duration of a pandemic) to materialize. Now finally at the Public Theater in Manhattan, Girl, Interrupted is a sturdy showcase for Mann’s gorgeous, shimmering-sad compositions, but perhaps a less successful conduit for Kaysen’s arguments.
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