NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)- Page 2
NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
fetzles1490
Featured Actor Joined: 4/16/05
#25re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 3/31/09 at 2:14pm
I can see why that might bother you, Cheno, but I think the fact that it happened in the first number of the show just means the audience didn't understand what was going on. I knew going into the show that it involved the mother's mental illness, so I understood the gravity of her manic sandwich making. For someone who didn't know that, or even someone perhaps a little bit immature, I can see where they'd laugh longer before fully realizing the situation.
Especially since in the first number, Diana's illness is treated pretty lightly compared to the rest of the show. --SPOILER-- Her line, "I'm just making sandwiches... On the floor..." is funny. --END SPOILER-- In my opinion, it's meant to be funny, in order to lighten a very very heavy situation so as to ease the audience into an intense emotional journey.
jordangirl
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/1/06
#26re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 3/31/09 at 2:24pmI agree fetzles. And even knowing what is coming, it IS a pretty awkwardly funny moment. I don't really laugh anymore, but I have in the past. But I definitely agree with what fetzles said. If you have no clue what is going on with the story (it's your first time seeing it) is IS funny. But in that awkward "WTF...something isn't quite right here but... WTF?" kind of way.
Experience live theater. Experience paintings. Experience books. Live, look and listen like artists! ~ imaginethis
LIVE THAT LESSON!!!!!!
LIVE THAT LESSON!!!!!!
TheBoyDownstairs
Featured Actor Joined: 10/10/07
#27re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 3/31/09 at 2:25pmI agree with both you guys. If its your first time seeing the show, if you aren't laughing at that moment I think there is something wrong with your sense of humor, because its a funny moment/line.
#28re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 3/31/09 at 3:01pm
Its funny in the moment sure, but not like several minutes after when generally a person would realize where it is heading.
Whatever...it was just an observation.
"Why do you care what people might say? Why try to fit into their design?" (Side Show)
heo1128
Broadway Star Joined: 7/9/08
#29re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 3/31/09 at 8:58pmI think what's funny and makes people laugh is the "if they say we're not then f**k 'em" line....and the fact that a first timer doesn't really know what's going on. I don't remember specifically, but on Saturday it seems like I remember spots that were a lot more inappropriate to laugh at than that....lol
KingKong
Broadway Star Joined: 2/28/09
#30re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 3/31/09 at 9:10pm
I've seen the show almost 10 times now (4 with the new ending to Just another Day) and I still laugh there, it's a FUNNY LINE, it is meant to be funny, it is intentional.
Just like how the parts of It's Gonan be Good with dianna being manic around the house are funny. Its a serious thing that is happening (she's having an episode after deciding to not take her meds) but it is humorous, and meant to be so. Using humor to diffuse otherwise serious situations is not an uncommon thing. It also heightens the emotion impact of the low points by making the cathartic journey more extreme.
#31re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 3/31/09 at 9:36pmTrue, humor is a useful tool. I never said her lines weren't funny. I simply said the laughter lingered after the lines to the section in the scene where it is clear that the situation is not so funny. That is the only point I was trying to make. I too have seen the show many times (mostly at Arena), and this was the first time I heard extended laughter at that part. Anyway, it was just an observation.
"Why do you care what people might say? Why try to fit into their design?" (Side Show)
joniray
Broadway Star Joined: 3/27/04
#32re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 3/31/09 at 11:43pm
I saw the show on Saturday night and again tonight. I heard a couple of odd snickers throughout the second act, some in the most dramatic of places, but the oddest one happened tonight.
SPOILER:
Ripley entered with her suitcase, put it down and sang "So anyway, I'm leaving" and the vast majority of the audience broke out in major laughter. Not just a few people. It was pretty much an audience wide thing. So odd.
#33re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 3/31/09 at 11:44pmTo be fair... it is a darkly funny moment. The sheer bluntess of it.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
joniray
Broadway Star Joined: 3/27/04
#34re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 12:02amIt's never struck me as funny. It's only struck me as terribly sad. And before this, I saw the show 6 other times in three versions and in all 6 of those performances, you could of heard a pin drop at that moment.
KingKong
Broadway Star Joined: 2/28/09
#35re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 12:06amI can see it as being humorous, Especially the way Alice performs it. She really sounds like she talking to a small child when she says it. Like she's a preschool teacher.
#36re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 12:13amIt's a very abrupt moment. Ripley just sort of appears there with the suitcase. I can definitely see people nervously laughing at the absurdity of the moment- she's just decided to go off her meds, dropped Natalie off at the dance, and come to the decision to leave.
WiCkEDrOcKS
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
#37re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 12:34am
I don't even think Ripley needs a suitcase in that scene. The single suitcase just makes the moment a little awkward and melodramatic. Or maybe she could have it in her hand facing upstage so it's not so up-and-front melodramatic.
And I think that's the one moment in the show that Ripley needs to work on. She kinda just spits that first line out and it feels a bit abrupt.
Updated On: 4/1/09 at 12:34 AM
#38re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 12:34amI was there tonight as well, and while I wasn't one of the people laughing, it IS supposed to be a darkly funny moment, I think. The situation isn't funny, but the bluntness of it and the "so," beginning the sentence. If the scene started with her saying "I'm leaving" I can guarantee there'd be no laughter. It's the "So, I'm leaving." It makes it seem so nonchalant.
WiCkEDrOcKS
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
#39re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 12:36amWhat did you think of the show?
burntplains
Featured Actor Joined: 1/24/07
#40re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 12:36amI think it would be VERY strange without a suitcase.
heo1128
Broadway Star Joined: 7/9/08
#41re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 1:33am
^I agree. The suitcase may be a little too obvious, but it's needed. Without it, someone may not immediately realize she's actually leaving Dan.
I think Ripley does a fine job with the line. There's really no other way to deliver it than to just spit it out...kind of like word vomit. And I think it how Diana would do it, too.
Updated On: 4/1/09 at 01:33 AM
jordangirl
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/1/06
#42re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 7:15am
I agree heo. It's just one of those moments that even in real life would be a tad blunt ~ or else drawn out and melodramatic.
My interpretation around it (stemming from watching Alice carefully throughout that section to read her body language and expressions) is that Diana really isn't sure she wants to leave. I think part of her knows that she has to get out of the house and relationship at least in the form it's in at that point, but part of her desprately wants Dan to give her SOME kind of response besides the "it's ok...we'll be ok" vibe that he's been giving, conceivably for 16, 17 years. I think that had he made any kind of effort to stop her, she would have changed her mind, but the fact that he just sits there cements for her that she HAS to do it.
In a slight change since the 2econd Stage production, largely I think driven by what she's getting from the other actor to play off of, in the version now, there is the slightest moment of hesitation, especially when Bobby's Dan looks up at Diana for a moment, and there's obviously an emotional tug-of-war going on in Diana's head about leaving right before she walks out. She wants to stay but knows it will kill them both ~ and probably Natalie too.
Brian's Dan, on the other hand, never looked up at her in all (14) the times I saw it at 2econd Stage (his big emotional moment of that came AFTER Diana was gone and Natalie had come home). The moment there was all about Diana looking back at him as she was on the verge of walking out, essentially asking with her eyes, her expression and her body language "DO SOMETHING!!! STOP ME!!!" before visibly sighing and walking out.
She doesn't WANT to leave, but she does want a chance to survive and knows that leaving is the only way she'll have a chance at that point. And I think it's a case of she just feels like it's easier to just say it ~ like ripping the band aid off ~ so she doesn't chicken out. Who knows how many times she's been on the verge of doing this and backed out before she got to the actually picking up the suitcase and leaving moment? Is it an awkward moment? Sure. But it would be in RL as well.
Experience live theater. Experience paintings. Experience books. Live, look and listen like artists! ~ imaginethis
LIVE THAT LESSON!!!!!!
LIVE THAT LESSON!!!!!!
#43re: NEXT TO NORMAL 3/28 Review (spoilers!)
Posted: 4/1/09 at 7:40amI am also very happy that they clarified where exactly she heads off to, so that the audience doesn't think she's just out there on her own, wandering the streets, without taking her meds. That tiny, almost throwaway line in the finale clarifies a lot.
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