Warning: This review contains a discussion about drug abuse and sexual assault.
Like the beloved classic “Mamma Mia,” “Jagged Little Pill: The Musical” creates a story around an artist’s music. “Mamma Mia” follows a young girl trying to find her father on a Greek island set to ABBA’s memorable tunes, while “Jagged Little Pill: The Musical” is a devastating insight into abuse, addiction and expectations, built on Alanis Morisette’s heartbreaking lyricism and musical compositions.
“Jagged Little Pill: The Musical” follows the Healy family, including the opioid-addicted mother, Mary Jane (Julie Reiber), sex-deprived and overworked father Steve (Benjamin Eakeley), “golden-boy” swimmer and Harvard-bound son Nick (Dillon Klena), and bisexual, adopted and radical sister Frankie (Teralin Jones). “Jagged Little Pill” explores the dynamic between the four family members and their relationships in their small Connecticut town.
Walking out of the Gammage Auditorium last Thursday night, there were two things I couldn’t get out of my head. The first was the incredible performances of Mary Jane and Jo (Jade McLeod), and the second was the overarching theme of the damage that can be done by expectation.
To my first point, Julie Reiber gave an astounding performance as Mary Jane. Her dramatic and comedic beats were compelling and vulnerable. Her vocals were crystal clear, and only rivaled by Jade McLeod’s, who played Frankie’s rageful girlfriend, Jo.
I was thoroughly impressed with McLeod’s ability to maintain a bright, clear belt, and during the same show, “screlt”– a difficult mix of screaming and belting– at the top of her voice to make her points abundantly clear. Her ability to execute those vocal styles in a sustainable way occupied space in my brain for hours after the show ended.
While everyone in the cast gave stellar performances, Reiber’s and McLeod’s stood out to me.
To my second point, “Jagged Little Pill: The Musical” was a masterclass in the damage that can be done when people allow the expectations of others to dictate their actions. Nick dreads what may have happened if he hadn’t gotten into Harvard, lamenting how he feels his perfection is what makes his parents love him.
In a more serious instance of expectations causing harm, after a party he attended, in which a lifelong friend of his, Bella (Allison Sheppard) was raped by a classmate, Frankie begs Nick to testify for Bella. Nick is reluctant at first, and Mary Jane is absolutely opposed to Nick testifying. She’s terrified that Nick may be considered an accomplice to the crime if he comes forward and puts his admission to Harvard on the line.
Nick eventually decides that the truth and justice for Bella are more important than what might happen to him if he came forward, but not before a considerable amount of damage is done to Bella’s reputation and mental health.
Both Nick and Mary Jane use the common rhetoric surrounding rape culture, making the point that “these things happen when a girl drinks too much.” It was a clear demonstration of the harm that can be done when someone conforms to the expectations society has laid out for them. No need for the golden boy to speak up and put his future on the line when he’d only be helping one girl who got “too drunk.”
In one scene, Bella shows up at the Healy home asking for Nick and has a conversation with Mary Jane, who admits she had something similar happen to her in college. Bella heartbreakingly asks, “When will I feel okay again?” The two sing a duet (Uninvited), in which Mary Jane’s past self (Shelby Finnie) dances around her present self in an incredible representation of the past haunting the present. Finnie’s dancing was utterly haunting and left me with a very clear understanding of the pain Mary Jane had been suppressing for years.
Jagged Little Pill was, in its own words, “refreshingly self-aware.” From jokes about Fox News to a memorable, show-specific wisecrack about the city of Phoenix to a mention of Alanis Morisette’s music, the show was hilarious. After Mary Jane overdoses and is hospitalized, Steve holds her hand at her bedside and recounts how, in college, they used to joke about getting old and going to rehab together. “Well, we made it!” was his attempt at a joke, quickly followed by “No, this isn’t the time.” This was so similar to something my stepfather would do that my mother, sitting next to me, put her head in her hands to muffle her laughter.
On the tech side of things, there were a few lighting decisions that stood out to me during the show. Frequently, when the lights faded, there was one spotlight left on the “problem” of the scene; a bottle of pills in one instance, a fight between Mary Jane and Frankie in another.
As someone who has dabbled in light design in the past, I thought this was a clever way to avoid simply fading the lights out of a scene, or jumping quickly to a blackout.
The set design was modest but utterly functional with one large moving platform that the Healy living and dining rooms would appear on, framed by a false proscenium in the shape of a house’s outline. Every other set was rolled on separately, creating swift and clean scene changes. The former stage manager in me was thrilled to see such efficiency in the set design.
The costumes were evocative of a modern town in America, which is exactly what was supposed to come across. Frankie’s costumes were perfectly edgy to match her personality and set her apart from the “basic” dress of the other three members of her family.
I had no prior knowledge of the show before I saw it last Thursday, and to say I was blown away would be an understatement. It was emotional, it was moving, and it was important. “Jagged Little Pill: The Musical” hits home and is an incredible tribute to the music of Alanis Morisette.
“Jagged Little Pill: The Musical” played at ASU’s Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium from January 30 to February 4, 2024.