“When you find yourself leaping to a standing ovation with the rest of the audience, in the middle of a musical, you are aware that there is something very special going on.”
“Morissette’s music, Diablo’s book and the directorial vision (Diane Paulus) do exactly what a theatrical experience should; treat the audience with intelligence and respect by embedding the issue in the characters and letting them play out the human experience.“
Kate Stratford
5 /5 obnoxious-upper-middle-class-Christmas-letters
When you find yourself leaping to a standing ovation with the rest of the audience, in the middle of a musical, you are aware that there is something very special going on. (Even more so when you are not someone typically given to standing ovations!) Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill – currently at the Theatre Royal – had everyone on their feet cheering and a cast having to pause until order was restored. And since it is not a cheeky rom-com, nor a costumed showcase it is the more surprising; for this is, at its heart, a painful tearing off the veneer which covers a very problematic world and provocatively asks: Are you up for it?
Mary Jane Healy (Natalie Bassingthwaighte) is the sort of mother who tends to set one’s teeth on edge. And you know who I mean. Relentlessly cheerful, entitled, organised and smug she takes credit for all that goes well and refuses to accept any ownership of that which is amiss. But Mary Jane also has a secret. Two actually. She has a spiralling addiction to pain killers which she is barely managing to manage and which she doesn’t manage at all when triggered by a rape in their perfect community. This is a tailored fit for Bassingthwaighte, whose voice and artistry meet all the demands of Morissette’s music.
It isn’t just Mary Jane who is struggling. Her husband Steve (Tim Draxl) juggles the competing demands of a 60-hour work week with being husband and father. The adopted daughter Frankie (Emily Nkomo) is a confused black adolescent in a predominantly white community and the son Nick (Liam Head) is finding that in trying to please everybody and be “Perfect”, he has lost himself. This is a family on the edge of imploding; and the cast invest their characters with all the truth and vulnerability and pain necessary to deliver complete engagement when the facade is finally cracked open.
They are not alone. Maggie McKenna’s Jo is so authentic and electrifying, their performance of “You Ought Know” brought the audience to the aforementioned ovation. In a moment where the emotion expressed is such a deeply personal one, the ensemble crowds to the stage to vocally and physically become the entity that is Jo. It is a brilliant directorial and movement decision.
Circling and impacting the Healy family are a paradoxically fragile yet strong Bella (Grace Miell) and charismatic Aydan as Phoenix. And an ensemble taking on various townsfolk roles but more importantly, playing out the inner emotions of the central characters. This ensemble is pure expressionistic danger. They move seamlessly within the liminal spaces to create and interact in a style of choreography developed in New York in the early 2000s. It is urgent, colourful and aggressive. Raucous, joyful and angry. And tight!
The traditional way dance and movement is used in theatre is to create the environment, to help set the scene and sustain it. This is not the space choreographer Sidi Larbi Cheerkaoui occupies. Dance and movement in Jagged Little Pill are methods of exploring the characters’ repressed inner life. In watching the dance, one does not see the physical environment but the emotional landscape. Atmospheric dialogue and song are rendered in a highly physical manner. In particular, Bassingthwaighte’s “Uninvited”, on the couch with a choreographed double is both a corporeal and emotional highlight of the show.
The visceral performances are just one ingredient of this stunning musical. All the design elements – multi-media, lighting, set and sound are so cohesive that they create a new standard for modern musicals. In a sense, they could be said to actually re-write the manual on “how to” for future producers. As does the book by Diablo Cody. Too often contemporary theatre experiences fall into the error of finger-wagging the audience with characters espousing at great lengths their beliefs because, after all, the writer does not want the audience to miss their point! Morissette’s music, Diablo’s book and the directorial vision (Diane Paulus) do exactly what a theatrical experience should; treat the audience with intelligence and respect by embedding the issue in the characters and letting them play out the human experience.
Jagged Little Pill is not about the suffering of one individual but how individual suffering impacts community and holds that community accountable. It proudly stands up and tells the story that so often, women cannot tell for themselves.
And asks: What are we going to do about it?
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
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