Los Angeles Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Still, "Next to Normal" is worth catching, and not just for those fretting about the musical's future. At the center of the production is a truly gutsy tour de force performance. Diana swings dangerously high and low, and Ripley soars while tracing these heartrending arcs."
Variety
- Highly Recommended
"...Pulitzer Prize-winning pharmacological tuner "Next to Normal" kicks off its national tour at the Ahmanson with its intensity, design scheme and Tony-honored leading lady - force of nature Alice Ripley - intact. Happily, the other five players are easily the emotional equals of their Gotham predecessors. This strange saga of a bipolar housewife's battle to maintain her sense of self, in a world determined to medicate her into conformity at at any cost, won't be to every taste. But it shouldn't fail to absorb anyone interested in what's happening in American musical theater and, not incidentally, in American families."
LA Weekly
- Highly Recommended
"...Director Michael Greif's staging is fierce and dynamic: One might expect a story on these themes to be heavy and dreary, but the production crackles with energy and intensity. Scenic designer Mark Wendland's surreal, three-level, cagelike set at first seems like an odd fit for this family tale, but the way the characters romp all over the structure elegantly illustrates the madness in Diana's mind. Kitt and Yorkey's score may consist of memorable, fin-de-millennium rock numbers, but the music also engenders heightened realism with operatic grandeur. We're particularly lucky for the opportunity to see Ripley's reprise of her original Diana -- her ferocious renditions of "I Miss the Mountains" and "You Don't Know" are likely to be the decade's most memorable show tunes. Also compelling are Hansen's sweet, oddly disturbing Gabe and Hunton's vulnerable and self-damaging Natalie."
Backstage
- Highly Recommended
"...The marvelous score, which skillfully incorporates a broad mix of styles, sounds fabulous under the music direction of Bryan Perri, supervised here by Charlie Alterman. Ditto the vibrant orchestrations by Michael Starobin and Kitt, plus Brian Ronan's sound design. Mark Wendland's multilevel industrial set is wondrous, underlining the fragmented state of the characters' emotions, beautifully served by Kevin Adams' stunning lighting effects. Jeff Mahshie's costumes are likewise first-rate."
Edge
- Somewhat Recommended
"...It is the music that keeps Next to Normal floating above the heaping bowl of corn flakes it yearns to sink into. Even a nod once too often to clichéd pop idioms cannot keep composer Tom Kitt from brilliantly exploring a vast range of musical technique including bitonality, dissonance, and intriguing harmonizations and rhythmic feints. He has a Mozartean love of ensemble writing - his vocal combinations pop up unexpectedly and winningly, giving a range of choral effects remarkable in such a small chamber opera-sized vehicle."
Stage and Cinema
- Somewhat Recommended
"...You want to rave about Next to Normal simply based on its originality, but you feel compelled to point out gaps and inconsistencies because, as original as the creators are, the show circumnavigated your heart; the journey never made it inside."
LA Splash
- Somewhat Recommended
"...I was at odds with the staging. For most of the show, the cast seemed to keep a mandatory three foot distance from one another. If the essence of drama is struggling against one's circumstances, what would be more interesting that watching these characters literally and physically trying to overcome the distance between each other and failing, over and over again."
StageHappenings.com
- Somewhat Recommended
"...The much-heralded rock musical Next to Normal with music by Tom Kitt with book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey has arrived at the Ahmanson theatre. This is a multi-award winning musical was developed through a series of workshops, played off Broadway, went to the Arena Stage, and finally made its Broadway debut in April of 2009. It was nominated for a slew of Tony Awards and won three including Best Original score, Best Orchestrations, and Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical (Alice Ripley, who is doing the tour). It also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010. In Los Angeles it is being met with heaps of praise but I for one must defer. Its not that the show is in any sense bad, brilliant direction by Michael Greif, terrific jungle gym set by Mark Wendland (the metaphor being that the mind is a jungle gym), and a very talented cast lead by Ripley, Curt Hansen, Asa Sumers, Emma Hunton, and Preston Sadler. The music is catchy. Is sung well, and sounded exciting. My problem is what the musical ends up saying about mental illness, bi- polar disorder in particular."
Socal
- Highly Recommended
"...The actors' performances were astoundingly powerful, bringing me to tears on multiple occasions. The raw emotion Ripley evokes as a wife and mother with a painful past is simply riveting. Although you fear what Diana's illness might lead her to do, it's impossible to look away. Rather than watching fiction, the audience is so drawn in by the performances it's as though they're watching real life unfold."
LA Stage Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Rock is also what distinguishes Next to Normal from hundreds of previous dramatic treatments of mental illness. Without those attention-grabbing sounds and sights, Next to Normal might have felt too small for Broadway and the Ahmanson – and wouldn't have reached as big an audience as it has."
OC Register
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Director Michael Grief, who also helmed the Broadway production of "Next to Normal," keeps the story's layered and potentially confusing narrative crystal clear on Mark Wendland's multi-layered and somewhat overstated set, which depicts a psycho-dramatic reduction of a family home replete with huge eyes and other facial features. The action is too kinetic at times, but it doesn't hide the stasis that overwhelms this show's second act. "Next to Normal" is ultimately unsatisfying, but it's hard not to be impressed with the effort and talent employed to smooth out its shortcomings."
