Little Fish

Michael John LaChuisa has been writing musicals non-stop for over two decades. He’s drawn from a wide variety of source material including Greek myth, celebrity biography, French and Spanish drama, Japanese cinema and American poetry. Little Fish was drawn from two short stories Deborah Eisenberg: Days and Flotsam.

The heroines of Days and Flotsam are forced to reinvent themselves. The former after she quits smoking and the latter after she flees an abusive relationship. LaChuisa combines them into the character of Charlotte. The cigarettes had been a coping mechanism for so long that she forgot what she was coping with. Her pain forces her to build a community with those around her instead of swimming upstream on her own.

Tension builds as she passes from person to person, then dissipates in a "don't worry / be happy" ending. The structure has been compared to Company though there's no "Ladies Who Lunch" or "Being Alive" to cap off the night. Instead I held on to the songs for Charlotte's Sorry-Grateful friends, Marco and Kathy, who end up the most fully formed characters on stage.

Next to Normal

Yorkey and Kitt’s “Next to Normal” has a fantastic first act. The characters and stakes are quickly established and the plot has several surprises. Act two runs out of steam. The writers seem to shrug their shoulders and say “Sheesh. Doctors. Amirite?” The show went through extensive rewrites and the final version feels like a compromise. Still it’s exciting to see this subject matter treated with a modicum of respect. Diana’s treatment is as complex as her disorder and the limits of America’s mental health care system are laid bare.

I love the big numbers for Natalie and Gabe but wish Diana had a proper 11 o’clock number. Her angrier songs are constantly undercut by her husband’s counter melodies. It speaks to the dynamic of their marriage but denies her a proper "Rose's Turn" moment. The catharsis instead goes to her husband Dan. His (plot spoiling) reprise of I Am the One reduces me to a sobbing puddle every time I hear it.

EDIT: August 28, 2016

Here's a revised version that gets the leading man into the third frame.