{"id":111005,"date":"2019-12-05T22:25:47","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T03:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/jagged-little-pill-is-a-raw-and-explosive-portrait-of-suburbia-on-the-brink-review\/"},"modified":"2019-12-05T22:25:47","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T03:25:47","slug":"jagged-little-pill-is-a-raw-and-explosive-portrait-of-suburbia-on-the-brink-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/jagged-little-pill-is-a-raw-and-explosive-portrait-of-suburbia-on-the-brink-review\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Jagged Little Pill\u2019 Is a Raw and Explosive Portrait of Suburbia on the Brink: REVIEW"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Jagged Little Pill\u2019 Is a Raw and Explosive Portrait of Suburbia on the Brink: REVIEW<\/b><\/p>\n

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Some music is so emotionally raw, it\u2019s almost embarrassing. The vulnerability of its rage and sorrow feels too messy and explicit, detailing dark recesses of feeling many of us would just as soon keep hidden. When Alanis Morissette\u2019s Jagged Little Pill<\/em> came out in 1995, it sounded like the id of a generation of disaffected young women<\/a> unleashed in one guttural howl. To some it was delicious catharsis; others were reflexively turned off by its earnestness. I devoured it on repeat like the drama queen I was \u2014 and then suddenly, promptly pushed it away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alanis was too much. She had no chill. And if I wanted to grow up, I needed to stop stamping my feet or staring off into the middle distance wallowing in a vague sense of the world\u2019s injustices, and learn how to cope.<\/p>\n

The same qualities that make Morissette\u2019s music uncomfortable are what make it uniquely suited to musical theatre \u2014 which yes, some people also find embarrassing in its emotional displays. Jagged Little Pill<\/em>, the new musical opening on Broadway tonight, ingeniously seizes on the dynamics that made the album divisive and wrests them into an explosive and shattering portrait of American suburbia. It\u2019s a story about dirty and difficult open secrets, how much we\u2019d rather ignore them, how painful it is to confront them head-on, and how absolutely necessary doing so has become.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The Healy family has a surface sheen: Dad works long hours in the city, Mom whips up pancakes from scratch, their high-achieving son just nabbed early acceptance to Harvard, and their adopted daughter (who\u2019s Black while her family is white) devotes herself to civil activism. Underneath all that, Dad (Sean Allan Krill) is lonely and self-soothing with porn and Pepto Bismol, Mom (Elizabeth Stanley) is sliding into addiction to pain meds, pressure to be perfect is crushing their son (Derek Klena), and their daughter (Celia Rose Gooding) is just trying to figure out who she is. (She happens to be bi<\/a>, but her coming of age isn\u2019t about coming out.) The rape of a classmate (Kathryn Gallagher) at a party has implications for each of them and turns the plot\u2019s emotional gears.<\/p>\n

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Diablo Cody, best known as a screenwriter of wry, women<\/a>-driven narratives like Juno<\/em> (2007) and Jennifer\u2019s Body <\/em>(2009), achieves remarkable depth in a story that can sometimes seem to sprawl, both in order to incorporate as many Morissette songs as possible (two new tracks have been written for the show) and check off a laundry list of current social ills. Cody\u2019s sharp humor certainly helps. But if the scope of what Jagged Little Pill<\/em> aims to address feels precariously ambitious, the musical never short-changes its delicate, intertwined treatment of both sexual assault trauma and opioid abuse. To match Morissette\u2019s music, beautifully orchestrated here by Tom Kitt, Cody\u2019s script is honest and believable in a way that surpasses Tony-winner Dear Evan Hansen<\/em>, its nearest Broadway kin.<\/p>\n

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The physical production from director Diane Paulus has the seamless flow of a waking dream turned terrible nightmare, with an efficient, paneled scenic design from Riccardo Hern\u00e1ndez vividly lit by Justin Townsend. Paulus\u2019 staging, and especially the work of movement director and choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, are most extraordinary when the musical is at its most unflinching. How do you stage sexual assault? Slow its queasy momentum, capture its impact? Or demonstrate a long-buried trauma clawing its way to the surface? The results are among the most arresting moments of stagecraft on Broadway in recent memory.<\/p>\n

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The uniformly strong cast makes Morissette\u2019s songs their own, even lending some a subtly the original recordings make up for in brashness. But there\u2019s a reason that \u201cYou Oughta Know\u201d \u2014 the album\u2019s most furious anthem, incredibly sung here by Lauren Patten playing the spurned lover \u2014 gets the most riotous applause. The time for learning to cope, for pretending that everything is and will be fine, is over. Welcome back to the age of rage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Male Mediocrity Goes to Seed in \u2018Linda Vista\u2019: REVIEW
<\/a>Beyond the Breaking Point in \u2018Slave Play\u2019 and \u2018Heroes of the Fourth Turning\u2019: REVIEW<\/a><\/em><\/strong>
Broadway\u2019s \u2018Moulin Rouge!\u2019 Is a Dystopian Glitter Bomb of Empty Excess: REVIEW<\/a><\/strong><\/em>
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Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Photos by Matthew Murphy<\/p>\n

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The post \u2018Jagged Little Pill\u2019 Is a Raw and Explosive Portrait of Suburbia on the Brink: REVIEW<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad Gay News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Jagged Little Pill\u2019 Is a Raw and Explosive Portrait of Suburbia on the Brink: REVIEW<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n