"NEXT TO NORMAL" HARD TO ACHIEVE AT WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE

Have you ever questioned how precious and precarious life can be? How a single incident can have a profound and long lasting influence on all your future days? Did you ever feel that some days you need a stronger Elmer's or Gorilla Glue just to hold on to life? Being caught in a pandemic for more than two years can provide a good example of the difficulties. Or that you were trapped in a soap opera and you can't find the remote control to change the channel? Maybe your life is a bad movie and all you want to do is walk out of the theater. If those feelings resonate or are even only remotely familiar, you will commiserate with and feel compassion for Diana Goodman and her family. Westport Country Playhouse and its contemporary set by Adam Koch are the perfect venue for "Next to Normal," an intensely personal story of a family in crisis, playing until Sunday, April 24. Many years ago Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey were given the challenge to compose a ten minute play about electric shock therapy. The result, now a full fledged musical, has won them a trio of 2009 Tony Awards as well as the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Dar. Lee. See. Ah. is wonderfully convincing as Diana, who struggles daily, almost minute to minute, with a diagnosis and label of bi-polar depression. The loss of a baby son Gabriel, sixteen years before, haunts her and to survive, she regularly communicates with Gabe, a powerfully present Daniel J. Maldonado, as the teenager he would be had he lived. Dan, a faithfully supportive Wilson Jermaine Heredia, is the faithful husband who tries to guide Diana through her mental and emotional ups and downs, chauffeuring her to doctor's visits and the succession of drug therapies. When all seems darkest, after a plethora of pill combinations and counseling don’t work, her doctor (Katie Thompson) suggests electric shock therapy. Natalie, a struggling teen with her own issues, desperately wants a normal mother and normal family, but she will settle for one that is "next to normal." Now with a boyfriend Henry, a tender and concerned Gian Perez, by her side, she craves a mom to confide in and get advice from, not the woman who is distant and unattached. Ashley LaLonde is agonizingly perfect as the daughter who yearns for a simple, even dull existence. Marcos Santana does a splendid job directing and choreographing a fine cast of color, dealing with the difficult subject of mental illness. For tickets ($50 and up), call Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, Westport, at 203-227-4177 or online at www.westportplayhouse.org. Performances are Tuesday at 7 p.m., Wednesday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m With songs that evoke both laughter and tears, follow a family caught in a personal and private battle that affects everyone in their world.