Who you calling normal?

“Next to Normal,” a musical that earned both a Pulitzer Prize in drama and three Tony Awards, is being performed through October 28 at the Herberger Theater Center in downtown Phoenix. It’s a joint production of Arizona Theatre Company and San Jose Repertory Theatre. “Next to Normal” features book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt.

When the Broadway production went on tour, Arizona wasn’t in the line-up. Instead, Valley fans of “Next to Normal” traveled to San Diego’s Balboa Theatre and other parts to see the show. I first saw “Next to Normal” with my daughter Lizabeth in San Diego on a night Alice Ripley reprised the role of “Diana.”

The Arizona Theatre Company production features Kendra Kassebaum (Diana), Joe Cassidy (Dan), Jonathan Shew (Gabe), Andrea Ross (Natalie), A.J. Holmes (Henry) and Mark Farrell (Dr. Madden and Dr. Fine). All deliver genuinely moving performances and powerful vocals, which are strongest during shared musical numbers filled with heartwrenching harmonies.

“Next to Normal” simultaneously explores several relationships — husband and wife, mother and daughter, patient and doctor, girlfriend and boyfriend. Even mother and son, as Diana is haunted by delusions that the son who died during infancy is now grown and still in her life. Arizona Theatre Company’s production capably balances the attention and importance given each one. Though Dan and Diana’s relationship feels like a hot burning sun, not everything is forced to rotate around them.

I enjoyed Kassebaum’s performance no less than Ripley’s, but struggled to picture her in mother mode given the fact that she looks nearly as young as the actress playing daughter Natalie. It’s equally hard to imagine that a woman taking medications for bipolar disorder would be quite that thin. Still, Kassebaum exquisitely conveys the emotions of a woman vanquished by vacillations between extreme highs and lows.

“Finale: Light” from the ATC production of “Next to Normal.” Photo Tim Fuller.

Seeing “Next to Normal” is especially poignant for those living with mental illness in the family. They know the toll it takes on everyone it touches, and will feel most keenly the musical’s explorations of what causes mental illness and what’s best done by and for those who are affected. But others will find plenty of material that resonates.

Can we be too trusting of our doctors? Would we choose to lose bad memories if we knew the good ones would go too? How important is happiness? When should we put self before others? Why does so much healing hurt? Is loss the price we pay for love? What if a cure is worse than the symptoms? How do we balance the needs of various family members? And what’s really normal?

“Next to Normal” is directed by ATC artistic director David Ira Goldstein, and Kathryn Van Meter serves as assistant director. Christopher McGovern is music director, John Ezell is scenic designer, Kish Finnegan is costume designer, David Lee Cuthbert is lighting and projection designer, and Abe Jacobs is sound designer. Together they create a production that’s delightfully playful despite its serious subject matter.

The Arizona Theatre Company set has a ground floor and second level, plus an elevated area traversed by Shew when the family feels highjacked by Gabe’s grip on Diana. The center looks a bit like someone used a cookie cutter to create the cut-out of a house. It’s got several layers, including one that’s clear and conjures images of broken glass. The house is sometimes filled with blocks of bright colors, white clouds rolling behind four white windowpanes or a cascading flow of neon-colored pills.

Several “Next to Normal” scenes incorporate the bright colors that have come into fashion only recently, giving the musical a fresh new feel. Some elements, including square tiles of light traveling along the floor and tall towers with protruding dollhouses, feel like overkill. It’s all over the top in a scene that introduces Diana’s second doctor as if he was the star of a weird “Hair” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” mash-up. Even so, ATC’s production is a creative conduit for the emotional electricity at the heart of “Next to Normal.”

“Next to Normal” is one of those rare musicals, like “Rent,” that treats one of society’s toughest challenges authentically rather than artificially. Though dialogue in several scenes conveys information about diagnosing and treating mental illness, it never feels contrived or condescending. And it never interferes with story or song.

Six musicians play for “Next to Normal” — including Christopher McGovern (conductor/pianist), Jeff Snider (percussion), Claudia Vanderschraaf (cello), Timothy Blevins (violin/keyboard), Steve Anderson (bass guitar) and David Shoup (electric/acoustic guitar) — and several are visible behind scenes taking place on the set’s ground level. Their music is magnificently moving.

Arizona Theatre Company has partnered with several Arizona agencies to share information about mental health and community resources with interested audience members. Partner agencies staffed resource tables at the Herberger Theater Center for Thursday night’s performance and Friday’s audience enjoyed an exhibition by Art Awakenings, which promotes empowerment through creativity for youth and adults living with mental illness.

Several works will be exhibited at the Herberger Theater Center throughout the show’s run, and resource partners will be on hand for the talkbacks that follow certain performances. Arizona Theatre Company’s play guide features information on both the production and mental health related issues, maximizing the musical’s potential for raising awareness about mental illness and its impact on individuals, families and communities.

Learn more at www.arizonatheatre.org.

— Lynn

Note: Those who attend today’s 1 p.m. matinee can stay after the show for a free post-show discussion. Click here to learn about additional community engagement opportunities. Click here to enjoy a PBS interview with Yorkey and Kitt.

Coming up: Artist goes underground, In a New York minute

Neanderthals making nice?

Cast of Arizona Theatre Company production of God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza

There’s a point in the play “God of Carnage” where things take a decided turn, but making it that far into the Arizona Theatre Company production, which I saw on opening night, took some doing. I found myself thinking, “I can’t take any more of these plays about people whining on pristine sofas.”

Soon slurs, swearing and something best left unnamed before the uninitiated start spewing forth — and the story develops at a quickening pace. Still, theater afficianonado Alan Handelsman, who was part of the first class of ASU Gammage Goer reviewers, felt “there was something missing” in the opening night performance.

Handelsman and his wife Anita saw the play a couple of years ago in New York City, and he’s got a clear preference for the NYC version’s vibe — feeling it had more “energy, commitment, rhythm, flow, surprise, pacing, abandon, arc and continuity.” Even simple prop choices, he recalls, gave the NYC production “a much greater sense of impending danger.”

Clockwise: Joey Parsons, Bob Sorenson, Amy Resnick and Benjamin Evett in the ATC production of God of Carnage

The Arizona Theatre Company production was good, says Handelsman, but not great. Despite being surrounded at the Herberger Theater Center by people laughing loud and proud, I’m afraid I have to concur. “God of Carnage” felt a bit of a letdown — perhaps because I went into it expecting so much. “God of Carnage” won the 2009 Tony Award for best play.

Other people whose opinions I respect felt differently. I saw Frances Smith Cohen, artistic director for Center Dance Ensemble, and her daughter Rachel Cohen in the theater foyer after the show, and both praised its artistry. Rachel loved “the writing and directing” and Frances “the contrast in characters.” My own theater baby Lizabeth, who has studied dance with both, would likely take their side.

We talked via “Skype” after I got home from the theater Saturday night, and Lizabeth was shocked when I shared my tepid response to the show. She saw “God of Carnage” in Chicago last year while touring colleges with my husband James. Both remember it being fabulously funny.

Lizabeth described it as “well written and well acted” — and shared that she loved watching the different characters evolve during the course of the story. Seems she was amused by just how “quickly the adults became the children.”

“God of Carnage” centers on two couples’ attempts at a civilized conversation after their sons spar on a playground. “You just don’t expect it to go as far as it does,” reflects Lizabeth. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen dad laugh that much,” she recalls. “He totally let loose.”

“Maybe.” she says, “it was his way of letting off steam after all the things that happened when we were little.” Seems she’s observed that the things we sometimes took too much to heart as young parents now fall into more perspective. “You used to take it all so seriously,” she told me. “You guys have learned to let go since then.”

The journey from kindergarden to college does effect profound changes. But the parents in “God of Carnage” have survived only grade school, and the perils of middle school are proving a bit more daunting. After meeting to discuss one boy’s use of a stick and another’s missing teeth, they demonstrate that words are perhaps the worst weapons of all.

The parents who seem so perfectly civilized to begin with soon dissolve into shreiking narcissism and nihilism, something that feels more believable once alcohol enters the picture. I hate to think any of us could trade “nice” for “Neanderthal” so quickly in its absence.

Handelsman, a highly-trained hypnotherapist, says the play reveals “how many different layers humans live in” — showing “the difference between the person we show, and the person we are, and the person we may be afraid we are.” Confronted with the final image in this production, we realize that humans haven’t evolved nearly as far as they imagine.

— Lynn

Note: This original production, directed by Rick Lombardo, is a co-production of Arizona Theatre Company and San Jose Repertory Theatre (which performs it next spring). Yasmina Reza has teamed with Roman Polanski to write the screenplay for a movie titled “Carnage,” directed by Polanski and scheduled for mid-December release. It stars Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly. Click here to learn about another opportunity to see the play performed live. Please note that “God of Carnage” contains “mature content.”

Coming up: Advice for young filmmakers, Handelsman shares his “Wicked” ways, Holiday shopping “arts and culture” style, The fine “Art” of Yasmina Reza

Photos: Tim Fuller for Arizona Theatre Company