Liars and Saints

 I'm not done with "Next to Normal," but I have some disjointed thoughts: *This century saw the birth of the Sad White Person Musical. I'm thinking of "Spring Awakening," "N2N," "Dear Evan Hansen." (I haven't seen the Alanis Morissette musical, but I have a feeling it might fit.) The Sad White Person Musical has a few standard elements: a suicide attempt (either successful or not), a fractured white family, a pop-inflected score, and a candid discussion about mental illness. *Watching the Broadway version of "N2N," it was difficult not to conclude that Alice Ripley herself was unhinged. Not just Diana the character, but also Ripley the performer. Ripley's vocal damage became a part of her myth: She was so committed, she wasn't taking care of herself. Though Caissie Levy gives a strong performance (and one that must exhaust her), she has a level of control that becomes somewhat distracting. It's hard to believe th...

 We're getting two Caissie Levy projects: "Ragtime" and a PBS taping of "Next to Normal." I'm on the record with my "Ragtime" reservations: The show is one big, generic ballad after another, and the writers haven't taken time to think deeply about the various traumatic events they faux-describe--in a breathless way--over three long, long hours. It's also disturbing to see a white family "rescuing" a Black orphaned kid; this ending isn't given the weight that it requires. The most recent "Ragtime" cast actually highlighted this problem in a talkback (and yet we're all awaiting another remounting of the show). One thing I'll say for "Ragtime." Lynn Ahrens always puts the stress on the right syllable. "We can NE-ver go BACK to before." Proper scansion is a lost art. Ahrens has respect for syllables. You can't make the same claim about "Next to Normal." Diana describes "the ...