Variety:
O.K, let’s wrap this one up and send it out where it can do the most good. Despite the downbeat subject of this message-heavy musical, Transport Group’s sensitive take on teenage anorexia could lighten the load on any family caught in the destructive spiral of a child with an eating disorder. Jack Cummings III’s severely stylish production addresses the entire family dynamic, using the intimacy of confessional songs to examine the complex psychological factors that compel a “normal” child to starve herself to death.
Cast adrift on John Story’s stark white set of vertical flats and stripped bare of all defenses by R. Lee Kennedy’s needle-nosed lighting, the Freeman family has nowhere to hide from the truth about itself. But that doesn’t stop the Freemans from denying that something is seriously wrong with the family.
In the show’s searing opening number, “Happy Family,” Gayla Freeman, her hysteria barely under wraps in Barbara Walsh’s strong performance, leads her spineless husband and screwed-up kids in a dissonant musical declaration that everything is just perfect in their ideal family.
Forget that Robert (Adam Heller) has given up on playing his paternal role (“Father Fantastic”). Don’t think about the pressure on Gayla to find a job outside the home (“Racing”). Ignore young Zachary’s (Nicholas Belton) attempts to talk about things that are upsetting him (“Breaking Things”). And for God’s sake, don’t anybody mention that Polly has stopped eating and is spending all her time alone in her room (“Pretty to the Bone”).
The spare but articulate score provides a musical release for each character to drop the burden of denial and open up. These individual moments are painful, and the collective impact is devastating -- bearable only because Yvonne Adrian’s book takes such care to go beyond the pain to offer real insight into the family dynamics behind Polly’s seemingly irrational behavior.
Does this show resolve anything? Not really, and the ending is a real emotional cliffhanger. But it’s rare to see such a compassionate, nonjudgmental attempt to examine why some families refuse to acknowledge that anything is amiss in their domestic paradise -- and why some children just can’t swallow that lie.
The New York Post:
You can’t accuse Transport Group of playing it safe. The troupe’s last production, the acclaimed musical The Audience, dealt entirely with the reactions of the theatergoers watching the show.
Now comes Normal a feel-good musical about a teenage girl with an eating disorder. And while it’s occasionally prone to ponderousness, it ultimately shows that any subject, if handled right, is grist for the musical mill.
The main character in the piece is ultimately not Polly (Erin Leigh Peck), the anorexic, but her indomitable mother, Gayla (Barbara Walsh), who finds herself fighting for her daughter’s life as she copes with such conundrums as “Cooking for the Starving,” as one number puts it.
The musical relates its story mainly through song as it depicts the internal tensions suffered by the family, which also includes perplexed father Robert (Adam Heller) and older brother Zachary (Nicholas Belton), as they all struggle to help Polly survive. A trio of actresses (Nancy Johnston, Toni DiBuono, and Shannon Polly) enact numerous other characters who figure in the story, including doctors and nurses. Director Jack Cummings III’s stylized production, performed on a mostly bare stage bathed in white light, has an almost clinical feel as it dissects the various aspects of the situation, one that has come to affect so many teenage girls in particular.
While the show is ultimately more notable for its thematic rather than creative aspects, the score by Tom Kochan (music) and Cheryl Stern (lyrics) is impressively sophisticated, and Yvonne Adrian’s book handles the difficult topic with sensitivity and welcome dashes of humor.
The performers invest their characterizations with great heart, with particularly moving work by Peck as the troubled teen and Walsh as her dedicated mom.
Normal may not be a normal musical, but it is well worth seeking out.
Broadway World:
Anyone interested in witnessing the unique dramatic power that can be achieved through musical theatre -- a stunning three minutes when story, song, acting and staging achieve what millions of dollars worth of production values could never match -- should get themselves to the Connelly Theatre for Transport Group’s premiere production of Normal. Erin Leigh Peck, toning down her singing technique to effectively portray a suburban teenager, rocks out across her bedroom, celebrating the loss of another pound as she experiences the opening stages of anorexia. Like an amateur Britney, she shakes her thin body, barely noticeable under baggy clothes, to her pop anthem, “Pretty to the Bone”, singing sophomoric imagery comparing herself to a tiny bird who can fly higher as she gets smaller. “Nothing will ever taste as good as I feel”, she sings, caressing her flat chest and striking what she thinks is a sexy pose as she feels how small her butt has become. We already know she’s stopped having her period and has been avoiding food entirely. The irrepressible joy she exudes as she shows off her severely flattening tummy and feels her ribcage is horrifying.
Normal is easily the first of the current crop of musicals in town I’d recommend for families with teenage children. (Heck, I’m recommending it for anyone.) As the spelling of its title suggests, Yvonne Adrian (book), Cheryl Stern (lyrics) and Tom Kochan (music) have written a show about trying to fit in with the accepted definition of your role in a family unit, and the frustration of finding that love and understanding doesn’t always make everything better.
The plot revolves around the Freeman family, dressed in average contemporary suburban clothes (costumes by Kathyrn Rohe), who stick out oddly in a world colored completely in pristine white. The set, by John Story, is a bare stage walled with white flats. There are minimal props, all white, and scenes are set by actors moving around white semi-squares. The trio who plays all non-family members (terrific work from Toni DiBuono, Nancy Johnston and Shannon Polly) are clothed entirely in white.
Life for Gayla Freeman (a lovingly comic and sympathetic Barbara Walsh) can be a bit frazzled at times, but she can still force a smile and almost convince herself that she’s mothering a perfect family. With both her kids in high school, she decides to re-enter the work force, but as she instantly adapts to the modern corporate world, daughter Polly (Peck) blows her chance to become accepted as one of the cool kids (A clever song and dance has Shannon Polly, as a popular girl, teaching Polly the rules of her clique.) and no one seems to notice her plunging self-esteem as she finds herself unable to live up to mom’s vision of a perfect daughter.
When a doctor’s check-up reveals Polly’s signs of an eating disorder, Gayla is positive that good mothering can solve all her daughter’s problems, but force feedings and bed-checks to make sure she isn’t exercising at 4 a.m. don’t stop Polly from steadily losing more weight.
Her well-intentioned husband, Robert (Adam Heller), is a non-authoritative pushover with the kids and not exactly an ace at romance, continually finding himself needing to release his frustration at being an ineffective father and spouse with vigorous workouts at the gym. In a striking musical scene he imagines himself as a boxer punching out his family as a substitute for actual violence. Heller plays the scene with a mixture of anger and just enough helplessness to keep you from believing his character would ever strike a loved one.
Big brother Zach (Nicholas Belton), a budding rock musician whose achievements are being ignored during this time of crisis, is the first to realize that Polly is the only one who can help Polly, and that a loving family is not the cure for everything. Belton nicely balances his character’s underdeveloped maturity with a need to be the grown-up.
But despite the serious subject matter the tone of the piece is rarely somber. Kochan’s music, played by a small string and woodwind ensemble is generally light and energetic as Gayla tries to smile her way through everything. Stern’s lyrics eschew poetry and wit for immediate and conversational language that blends seamlessly in and out of Adrian’s highly stylized book, both favoring short, sharp sentences that quickly zip from one time and space to another. Jack Cummings III stages the musical as a non-dancing ballet with a whirlwind of frenetic activity. Choreographer and associate director Scott Rink supplies minimal plot-driven dance when needed.
Saying that Normal is a musical about anorexia is a convenient shorthand, but Polly’s condition can be exchanged with any crisis that challenges the functioning of a family unit. Those lovely framed photos of happy smiling faces are usually planned and posed. Perhaps if we saved more candid shots from when our lives were a mess we’d have an easier time feeling good about how we’re doing now.
