SOME SHOWS YOU SEE. THIS SHOW YOU FEEL.
Joy, rage, love, heartache, strength, wisdom, catharsis, LIFE: everything we've been waiting and hoping to see on a Broadway stage for over a year is back, in this exhilarating, fearless new musical based on Alanis Morissette's world-changing music.
Nominated for 15 Tony Awards (the most of any show), and a recent Grammy winner for Best Musical Theater Album, this electrifying production about a perfectly imperfect American family "vaults the audience to its collective feet" (The Guardian). You live, you learn, you remember what it’s like to feel truly human... at JAGGED LITTLE PILL.
Along the way, we go through protests, marriage counseling, back-alley opioid scores, bitchy Connecticut coffee klatches, an overdose, and an extremely bad breakup. That's when Jo discovers Frankie in bed with another classmate, Phoenix (Antonio Cipriano) - 'He was wearing dog tags with no shirt like a douche,' Jo yells - and vents with 'You Oughta Know.' Patten starts the first halting words in almost a whisper: 'I want you to know / That I'm happy for you.' But as the song builds in volume and intensity, it's clear she's not simply singing; she's trying to pull the love out of her body. It's an emotional exorcism - and a performance that leaves her, and the audience, exhausted and exhilarated after its rock-concert-level conclusion.
Right from the start, the audience feels under attack by the fierce hormonal energy of angsty adolescents and the unfocused anxiety of their parents. Unsurprisingly, 'All I Really Want' is right up there, close to the top of the show, with the entire company articulating their inexpressibly painful needs. The spastic movements devised by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui provide a brilliantly crazed energy that smartly reflects their raging hormones and unfocused outrage. Even Emily Rebholz's rag-bag costumes contribute to the disjointed adolescent emotions that overflow the stage.
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