Amid the jukebox songs and time-honored classics of the West End stage, a new genre of musical theater is rising. It is a singing, dancing genre mental health musical that highlights identity and personal crises. This means that many new musicals trigger warnings that the upcoming performance may include suicidal teenagers and sexual assault, as in the case of Spring Awakening; Bullying and gay identity in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie; high school violence in Heathers the Musical and even a bipolar mother undergoing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in Next to Normal.
How did such dark, introspective material gain a foothold in the West End and why does it appeal to audiences so much? After all, musicals are based on song and dance; it’s not exactly conducive to explorations of difficult and specific mental health issues, especially in the modern British tradition led by the big, balladic voices in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh’s West End shows.
Some cite the groundbreaking success of Next to Normal, Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s 2008 musical about a suburban mother living with bipolar disorder; its new production moves from the Donmar Warehouse to the West End in June. Its producer, David Stone, suggests that the musical format can actually make difficult and intimate themes more powerful by appealing to emotions through melody and song. When he first watched Next to Normal, in which the characters’ lives are set to music, he felt that the show “penetrated the viewer’s soul in a way that is difficult to describe.”
For Michael R Jackson, the writer and songwriter of the multi-award-winning A Strange Loop, an American musical with pop and R&B tunes about gay identity, homophobia, racism and the fetishization of the Black body, the form can adapt to any story. “I think anything can be musicalized,” he says. The sounds of such musicals do not have to be dissonant: Minor chords do not have to indicate sadness and major chords do not have to indicate happiness. His show depicts hookups and sex scenes through songs, mentioning Aids and naked support in the lyrics; these aspects are claimed to affect the audience on a visceral and empathetic level precisely because they are ready for the music.
2007’s Next to Normal built on its predecessors, Rent and Falsettos, with offbeat, award-winning musicals about gay identity, HIV and Spring Awakening.. Combining pharmacotherapy, child loss, addiction and depression with a catchy pop and rock soundtrack, Next Normal received critical acclaim (three Tonys and a Pulitzer Prize) confirming the Broadway breakthrough of this new genre, and Fun Home, about sexuality and suicide, and Youth in Crisis. Shows like Dear Evan Hansen, which focus on masculinity.
Next to Normal tells its stories more closely than the average Broadway musical, tackling topics usually reserved for serious plays or independent dramas. Set in a family home, the film features songs about therapy and grief; References are made to Valium, Prozac and Adderall. In the rock number Feeling Electric, the main character receives electric shock treatment for his bipolar disorder. “In our workshop [in 1998]”There was a feeling that we hadn’t seen a story like this in musical theater,” Stone says. “We expected people to say, ‘You can’t do that,’ but instead they said, ‘Go ahead.'”
Stone, who also produced shows such as Wicked and The Vagina Monologues, was impressed by the way the songs tackled topics often hidden by shame. “This happens in everyone’s home, if not in your own home, next door. “Whether it’s mental illness in the family or physical addiction, there’s shame in that.”
I discovered Next to Normal during a cast recording when I was 13 or 14. This bothered me in a good way
Jack Wolfe
Actor Jack Wolfe has been nominated for an Olivier award for his role as the Goodman family son in Next to Normal, and will also soon star in a staged concert of Spring Awakening, where he will play the anxious character Moritz. His introduction to both shows came through the soundtracks. “I discovered Next to Normal when I was 13 or 14, through the original cast recording that I listened to all the time,” he says. “I remember being not only excited by the sound, but also disturbed by the humanity in it. I didn’t know musicals could make so much noise. “This bothered me in a good way.”
The growing success of such musicals may be due in part to younger audiences similarly connecting with the album before seeing the show. “We have access to the material and we get a feel for it. “It’s a very different experience than seeing the musical in the theater,” says Wolfe.
He adds that the music of Spring Awakening had the same effect on him. “He wasn’t being arrogant in his themes. As a young person I was confused and angry about my identity and place in the world, the changes I could or couldn’t make, so hearing these pieces was inspiring. Both are about what it means to be human. They don’t bat an eyelid and make you feel less alone.”
Actor Sophie Issacs found that young audiences connected with the story of Heathers the Musical, based on the film starring Winona Ryder. The black comedy, which deals with violent school bullying and sexual assault, with songs in which characters swallow pills and contemplate suicide, makes the plot less tense. It was performed off-Broadway in 2014, until British producer Paul Taylor-Mills picked it up and developed it for the West End in 2018. It was a huge success and returns to the West End this spring. Issacs was part of the original cast and noted how it made difficult conversations easier for 12-year-old viewers.
“When you think about how taboo these topics were when the film was released, and how they still are even now, Heathers’ open engagement with them meant that it became a way for young people to start conversations through music and by engaging with the characters.”
At every show he would see young audience members with their parents or grandparents. “A father and daughter would come every Sunday. It was all about the conversation on the subway and what it brought up. There was a huge cosplay where young men dressed up as well. [the character] Veronica.”
I wanted to write about real emotions, things people don’t talk about openly, feelings people don’t necessarily share.
Michael R Jackson
Musical for audiences to connect in this way have Taylor-Mills says he needs to be well prepared. “Young viewers seem to be interested in dark subjects [and] I think a lot of people are thinking: ‘What’s the next musical that explores these dark themes?’ But I think art should be the first and most important thing.”
When A Strange Loop premiered on Broadway, it was praised for its formal inventiveness and emotional depth, winning the Pulitzer Prize and two Tonys, among other awards. He says Jackson wasn’t trying to write a groundbreaking musical. “I wanted to write about real emotions, things that people don’t talk about openly, feelings that people don’t necessarily share publicly. I didn’t think people would see that.”
What’s striking is how long it takes for these shows to reach the West Coast after finding success in America (more than 15 years in the case of Next to Normal). Perhaps this has something to do with the UK’s famous emotional reserve. But the epidemic seems to have changed some things. Wolfe, 28, certainly thinks that’s the case among his peers.
“There is a difference in language and understanding now,” he says. “We can talk about medicine and therapy [much more openly]. We learn to explore our psychology in a new way, and you have the capacity to see this in these programs. Many people craved contact and humanity [during the pandemic] and now I want to know how others feel. These shows can start that conversation. “They’re not always easy to watch, but they’re worth it.”
Relating to: ‘It got to her bones’: Sheridan Smith reflects on her public meltdown and reliving it on stage
Taylor-Mills also recognized changing audience demographics over the past five years. “Theatre and audiences are changing very quickly with what’s going on socially and politically. The people who come are different, and the work I’m putting out now responds to that. Gone are the days of trying to find a show [only] More than 45 female ticket buyers come from hometowns… This should not be seen as something to resist as we rebuild. “In this way, we provide a future for those who usually go to see a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical or a more traditional musical, and for new audiences as well.”
Where the West End embraces tried-and-tested musicals with such themes, British producer Nica Burns is becoming a champion of offbeat local productions such as “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie,” which she first saw in its early form in Sheffield. Developed for the West End into The Little Big Things about disability, mental health and family guilt. “It is much more expensive to develop a musical [than a play],” he says. “I’m willing to take risks and give opportunities.”
He thinks that young people, in particular, tell their own stories in the form of musical theater, and that audiences respond to shows about today’s life and its daily challenges. “These contemporary shows appeal to everyone,” he says. “They don’t move away from the classics.”
At Wyndham’s Theater in London from 18 June to 21 September alongside regular runsR.. 15th anniversary concert of Spring Awakening June 2 at the Victoria Palace Theater in London. Heathers The Musical is at @sohoplace, London for a limited six-week run, until June 6.