A Weekend in the Big City

So this past weekend I went to go visit my best friend Becky in New York City. Just a quick recap:

• Bolt Bus, while i suppose worth the money, should really advertise their travel times using realistic expectations…no one goes from boston to new york in 4 hours
• I thought Bostonians had absolutely no patience….try meeting a New Yorker
• I still prefer the T over MTA
• We made quite a few irrational decisions, some of which may or may not have been illegal.
• We rushed Next to Normal, the most powerful musical of all time.

Ok, so lets focus on that last point (and because really, I wanted to write this blog post for my own recollection):

I don’t even want to give a synopsis (use wikipedia if you really want), but basically. Seemingly normal family. Find out the mother is a crazy, the father is trying to help but hide something, the sister is a genius but also a freak, and feels invisible, and the brother…well….something is up with him. If you see the show, you’ll know.

Now, I kid you not, this was one of, if not THE, most powerful show I’ve ever seen. One of the quotes from a review said something along the lines of “This is more than a ‘feel good’ show…This is a ‘feel everything’ show.” I don’t think I could come up with a better description. Parts are hilarious, parts are intense, parts are incredibly dramatic, and parts are just plain ol’ heart wrenching. I mean….I cried. And for those of you that know me, I am NOT a cryer (its difficult to even get tears to well up). For this show though, in the second to last scene (for those of you familiar, “I Am the One (Reprise)”), I lost it. Full on tears falling, stacatto breathing. Ya, it was intense. And considering I’m not one that deals with emotions well, I had a hard time dealing with the emotions that lingered. Very rarely do I ever go to any extreme of emotion, its more a tilt in one direction or another. After seeing this play though, I felt that intense sadness that the characters felt, the intense fear, the intense anxiety. For me, this was a rare occurance. Any show that has the ability to convey these emotions so strongly to the audience (and believe me, the number of times I saw people dabbing their eyes with sleeves/hankerchiefs/tissues was out of control) deserves to run for a very long time and some kind of award (nominated for 11 Tony’s. I wanna know what they’re gonna perform!). This is a show I not only WANT to see again, but MUST see again. Some people do drugs to exerperience some sort of emotion, but in a way, this show is absolutely a drug. Sure, you may feel horrible, or hopeful, or confused, or whatever, but you FEEL, which I think is the most important point (and omg, I just came to a huge realization about the show. A lot of the show focuses on numbness, denial, ignorance, but in the end, when all is resolved, the characters FEEL…much like the audience. Well damn, more kudos to this show).

Ok, almost enough gushing about the show. The cast was fantastic. Alice Ripley was beyong fierce (and she plays crazy SOOO well). J. Robert Spencer (who i got an autograph from and told how amazing he was) was fantastic, though maybe looked a little too young for the part. Aaron Tveit was phenomenal (i want his voice) as was Adam Chanler-Berat. Jennifer Damiano was pretty good, though I think they could get someone better (maybe it was on off night) and Louis Hobson was great for the part.

Overall recap: awesome weekend before my summer of orgo begins

GO SEE NEXT TO NORMAL IF YOU CAN. IT IS BEYOND WORD AND YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.