Jagged Little Pill, music by Alanis Morissette. Broadhurst Theatre, New York City.
Jukebox musicals are everywhere, but very few create original stories focused not on an entire catalog but primarily on one album. The new Broadway musical, Jagged Little Pill, is based on Alanis Morissette’s acclaimed 1995 album of the same name. Parts of it felt like a messy rough draft while others were intriguing and showed potential.
Fitting a 1995 album into a story set in 2019 Connecticut might seem like a stretch, but the score worked exceptionally well. I was a tad too young when Morrissette’s album came out (I was instead captivated by Avril Lavigne’s spiritual successor “Let Go” in 2002). But the songs fit in perfectly with the tone set, and many of the lesser known tunes could be hits in their own right. Especially the songs that are authentically grounded and introspective, “Smiling” and “That I Would Be Good.”
The performances in Jagged Little Pill are sensational; there wasn’t a weak link in the cast. Elizabeth Stanley as the mother Mary Jane and Sean Allan Krill as the father Steve both seem authentic and have delightful singing voices. Celia Rose Gooding as the well-meaning yet self-righteous Frankie breaks out as a leading lady. Derek Klena brings a three-dimensional portrayal as perfect son who needs to self-evaluate.
One standout from beyond the protagonist family is Lauren Patten as a sympathetic Jo with a rocking voice, who literally stops the show with a fiery rendition of “You Oughta Know” (it becomes less story and more of a concert halfway through, but it’s still a blast). The other is Antonio Cipriano as Phoenix who’s poised for a career breakout with maybe the smoothest voice to Broadway since Leslie Odom Jr.’s in Hamilton.
The book, written by Academy Award-winner Diablo Cody is a carbon copy of 2009’s hit musical Next to Normal. Like that, JLP starts on a suburban family that appears happy but faces demons below the surface. The matriarch feels the need to manage everything while facing dependence on prescription drugs. Her husband feels unloved and neglected while urging her to go to therapy. They have two kids, a “superboy” perfect son and a daughter who can’t do anything right. The resemblance is uncanny.
Even beyond the basics, Jagged Little Pill feels like they started from angsty themes they wanted to address and then worked backwards on the story. There isn’t a single major American cultural issue in 2019 that wasn’t thrown into this book. Opioid addiction? Check. Rape and consent? Check. Racial relations? Check. White and male privilege? Check.
Even toss in queer identity, climate change, gun violence, infidelity, adoption, justice, and religion just for good measure. And that’s all not even accounting for the dozens of protest signs characters hold up at different points, ranging from menstrual equality to immigration. Are all these topics legitimate issues and worthy of exploring? Of course. But they didn’t all have to be shoe-horned into one musical, thus spreading them all too thin. There’s a ton to take issue with in Trump’s America, but some focus would serve everyone well.
Another problem was the complete lack of subtlety. Musicals can powerfully show you inequality and let you reach the conclusion of injustice on your own. This show takes its morals and beats you over the head with a picket sign. An audience can realize for themselves what lessons to take away from the issues brought up, but Cody’s book always explains it to us anyway, like an after-school special.
Despite its flaws, Jagged Little Pill is the most interesting new musical of the season thus far. Director Diane Paulus and company went for it, trying to create something original. While it may fall short of its promise and cause a few eye rolls, it wasn’t standard or cookie-cutter; I was intrigued the whole time.