◎Without saying
Sadness, depression, treatment... If two years ago, when the Chinese version of the musical "Almost Normal" was first performed, the mental trauma was so bluntly spread in front of the audience with a lonely courage, then two years later, the second round of performances that appeared in praise and expectation may be confirmed from another side, this courage has been gradually transmitted, and more people have been able to face the psychological pathologies in modern society and intimate relationships.
The story of "Near Normal" is not complicated, and the playwright Brian Yorkey revolves around a mother who suffered from mental problems due to her son's early death, and describes her treatment process, and the impact of her illness on other family members, her husband Dan and daughter Natalie. The show made its debut on Broadway in 2009, receiving 11 Tony Award nominations that year and eventually winning 3 awards, including Best Original Song. The first round of nearly 800 consecutive performances, followed by a tour, has a large number of language versions in the world, once again confirming that this play can indeed evoke a wide range of resonance.
"Family affection" is indeed a subject with the greatest common denominator at the audience level, but if you add "mental illness", it becomes a little "almost normal". As the eighth musical in history to receive the supreme honor of the Pulitzer Prize, the committee said in its acceptance speech to "Near Normal": "This is a powerful rock musical that fights the mental illness of ordinary families in the suburbs and expands the thematic scope of the musical." "It is true that the musical, which talks about sadness, depression, suicide, ethics in modern psychiatry, is full of drug names and medical terms, feelings and sequelae when receiving treatment, and is quite biased in terms of subject matter and content, coupled with the diversified musical forms that serve the content, and the complex discussion of family and human nature issues, it is not difficult to see the influence of the musical theater master Stephen Sandheim concept musical.
Mother Diana is kind and fragile, hysterical when she is sick, and when she calms down, she strives to be strong, is a very attractive role, and the excellent singing and acting skills of this round of Shanghai premiere Kaju are also very good to support the character, and successfully substitute the audience's empathy into Diana. In the reminiscences, she recounts her carefree teenage years, and the audience also learns that the first child and marriage are both accidents for the male and female protagonists. "I thought I didn't have time to care about family", but Diana quickly adapted to the role and shifted the focus of her life, only to collapse because of the death of her child. Diana's first big song, her character song "I Miss the Mountains," actually points out her dilemma and longing: "My freedom is long dead, but I miss the mountains." ”
Of course, the knots that bound her were left by children who died prematurely. "I am the flame, the breath, I am the destruction, the desolation and the joy, hurting you, guarding you. I am your wish to come true, and my darkest nightmare, to conquer you and possess you. "The omnipresence of his son Gabu and the ever-present melody of "I'm Alive" bring a sense of evil charm – Gabu is the idea that keeps Diana alive, and the nightmare that haunts her inability to move forward.
What binds Diana is also the responsibility for other family members, and even the ardent expectations of her husband. Honestly Dad Dan came up with a sentence "The weight of the whole family is in your hands" to suppress people breathlessly, coupled with Diana's song "You Don't Know", since then he has been a good husband who has not abandoned for sixteen years, especially in the second act, when Dan's front foot persuades Diana to accept E.C.T. electric shock therapy, and the back foot sits at home and sings "Our family is only me", I will want to ask him whether he cares more about Diana's real experience. Or more concerned about the complete existence of this home. This painful process of depriving and reconstructing memories is a sharper contradiction that erupts with It's Gonna Be Good than the first act of the whole family sitting together to eat, and its roots are somewhat daddy "I want to feel" who seeks to heal the family, and does not know that it may be exactly contradictory to the healing of the individual.
The slightly rebellious adolescent daughter Natalie and her daughter's boyfriend have made a softer treatment in the Chinese version. Although she sometimes makes unreasonable teasing without understanding things, and although she has always been grumpy about her mother's neglect of herself, sometimes the delicate emotions she exudes better than her father's psychology, which balances Natalie's role itself and Diana's opposition to the family. When her dad tells her to give her mom an electric shock therapy, Natalie's first reaction is "how much she trusts you," and she realizes the problem with the united front between dad and the doctor: mom, who is treated as a patient, has long been deprived of her freedom, the right to choose, and her dignity as an individual.
The doctor's instructions retained in the play, the anti-human way of taking drugs, can also see the original irony of this musical. Inspired by a piece of news Yorke saw about patients receiving electric shock therapy, "Near Normal" was originally a 10-minute workshop skit called "Feeling Electric," for which composer Tom Kitt wrote a rock-and-roll soundtrack that smacked the insult to inhuman treatment. After the addition of musical theater director Michael Greif (who had directed "Yoshiya Rental" and more recently ,"To Evan Hansen") was also a hit, the focus shifted from criticism of medical institutions to the pain of the family. In the Chinese version, the original theme song "Feeling Electricity" at the end of the first act has even been deleted, allowing the audience to fully immerse themselves in the situation of the Goodman family.
As for the new revision of the choreography, it is similar to the Broadway version of the year, the hard body structure builds the frame of the room, the difference is that the floor of the room is misplaced, some stairs are also flipped, metaphorically confusing and sometimes confused spirit and upside-down living state; and the performance area separated by the room makes reality and illusion imagination juxtaposed, and the middle-aged couple who have experienced the disaster and the young couple who have just learned about life are in contrast, which strengthens the intertextuality of the work itself.
In the sequence of sad healing, there have been many masterpieces in film and television in recent years, and the award-winning film "Manchester by the Sea" has a similar question: Why expect a person who has experienced pain to return to the past? On the cognitive spectrum, can we maximize tolerance and understanding of the emotions and pains of others? When a family encounters difficulties but has different individual "symptoms", is it to solve the individual's problems or a family's problems? Does the individual precede the family? Can we face it squarely, do we still have to play the role of redemption as a family unit, or is it better to let each other be free?
The answer to Manchester by the Sea is that we don't need a happy ending in the traditional sense; I'm glad that at the end of Near Normal, Dad Dan is also "sick", and he begins to face his dead son, calling out Gabe's name for the first time, and also begins to receive treatment from a psychologist – not the sadness that was previously masked by Mom's sadness, or the sadness of self-repression; it is glad that at the end of "Near Normal", Diana decided to leave and chose the treatment plan completely autonomously for the first time. No one can guarantee a cure for the disease, no one can expect a bright future, but at least she took a step towards herself: "Maybe it won't get better, maybe it won't break down." "It doesn't need everything to be normal, it's incredible, as long as it's almost normal, I can." The little ghost and shadow that deviates from the normal is a place of sadness, and perhaps it can be more peacefully coexisted with. The so-called direction of light is "I want to be happy, I don't have to be normal", or an enhanced version - "I want to live, I don't have to be happy." ”
Missing the first round before, it is a blessing to be able to meet this work in the second round. For a long time, we have been driven by the tradition of denying mental illness, so that people always equate it simply with the "vulnerability" of individuals, and in recent years, the degree of social face to psychological problems has increased visible to the naked eye, and I believe that this is a drama that teaches us how to experience the healing process of trauma, and the market and confidence that should be there.