*NEXT TO NORMAL* brought me back to life. | West End ProShot First Reaction

Comments · 294

• BR

  @brilliantbri5 · 1 year ago

  Gabe is multifaceted. He represents mental illness, grief, and a life that that a little boy never got to live. <br>I think of it like: When he is manipulative, that’s mental illness, when he’s demanding, that’s grief, when he’s sweet or sad, that’s that little boy.

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• SO

  @SonOfEire3 · 1 year ago (edited)

  Gabe doesn&apos;t just represent her grief for her son but also her mental illness itself, hence why he often appears to encourage her to give up on her medicine and confide in him instead of Dan.

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• AL

  @alexlopez2867 · 1 year ago

  One of my favorite points of the musical is that we don’t learn Gabe’s name until Dan acknowledges his pain. Like the lyrics in I’m Alive that say “ until you name me, you can’t tame,” we had to wait for not only Gabe but also the real core issue to be named and acknowledged. And once we learn Gabe’s name, Dan admits his wife isnt okay, he leaves. He’s been “tamed.”

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• AN

  @Angel-yn8ix · 1 year ago

  I feel for all the characters, but I feel like Dan deserves a little more understanding. He at what 21? lost his 8month old baby then immediately had to put his feelings about that on the backburner because Diana had it worse. so, when Diana loses her memories of Gabe, he would rather ignore him all together like he&apos;s been doing. if he told Diana about Gabe then she would ask questions, then HE would have to talk about Gabe and face the fact that she wasn&apos;t the only one affected. is it healthy? hell no. was it right? again no, but I can see why he did it. overall, the whole situation is just heartbreaking on all sides. but yeah, next to normal is so good. Jack and the other actors did great.

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• TH

  @the_conqueer · 1 year ago

  ECT is actually a relatively normal and safe procedure when done properly. It gets it bad reputation from when it was done without both patient consent and anesthesia.

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• SA

  @sagevj · 1 year ago

  18 is how old he WOULD be now, she was picturing him aging had he survived. It would be his 18th birthday not because it was coming up as of his death but because it had actually been 18 years since he was born.

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• LE

  @lexterminate · 1 year ago

  This musical is everything to me. It&apos;s so cathartic. There&apos;s so much nuance within the family dynamics here and clearly, Diana and Dan have very different ways of coping. Dan specifically is very much avoiding his own grief and trauma because his wife needs him and he believes that the only way to fix her and to move forward is for her to forget, rather than for her to actually grieve and process and deal with the loss of their son. So her leaving is her breaking that cycle and not staying stuck in her grief and trauma, which also leads Dan having to confront his own. Jack is incredible in this show and there&apos;s really no other words for it. Gabe is such an interesting role and he honestly plays him to perfection. Also, Natalie is so heartbreaking at every second and I want to hug her. I want to hug all of them.

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• ME

  @MellsyBaby · 1 year ago

  The whole point of the show is that none of them are &quot;wrong&quot;, they&apos;re all grieving, and suffering, and coping, both with the death, and with Diana&apos;s illness, in different ways. Diana asks Dan if he knows how it feels to be so depressed, but she&apos;s not really asking him, and she&apos;s definitely not giving him space to answer. Also, hes constantly worrying about her, wether it&apos;s going to work late to clean the sandwiches, looking on forums and talking to coworkers about how to best help her (and like, what else can he do? His coworkers know bc he&apos;s gotten calls at work and most likely had to leave work to take care of her [&apos;I don&apos;t sit at work just waiting for the phone to ring&apos;]) the son tells Dan what he has to do is &quot;look at me&quot;, to face his loss and pain, but how can he when Diana needs so much? If she&apos;s breaking down and he&apos;s breaking down, then who&apos;s flying the plane?<br><br>This is my favorite musical bc I relate to every member and get where they&apos;re all coming from so much🥲🥲. I&apos;m a huge defender of Dan, but only Jamie&apos;s Dan. The obc &nbsp;and off Broadway Dans were awful, leaning into the &quot;I&apos;m annoyed by my crazy wife&quot; tropes, more than how Jamie plays him as a husband who has been here since the &quot;incident that triggered Dianas illness&quot;, and he&apos;s drowning, too.<br><br>I&apos;ll probably ramble more as I keep watching, I&apos;m only 27 minutes in

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• GR

  @greywater57 · 1 year ago

  In a musical full of absolutely brutal lines and turns, there’s one line that very consistently comes like a gut punch.<br><br>“I am the one who held you.<br>I am the one who cried.<br>I am the one who watched while you died.”<br><br>F*ck me, he spent so much of this show burying his own feelings to try and come across as stable and be there for his wife, but he also lost a son today. He WATCHED. HIM. DIE. And that grief’s been festering for about two decades, JEEZ

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• HA

  @hannahhull6077 · 1 year ago (edited)

  A few things I noticed after watching a few times. Gabe crawls because of the age he was whenever he passed away. It’s the same reason why he is cradled by Diana the entire time. Before they re-block this for the pro shot Gabe picks up Diana‘s purse makes sure that the pills are in there and then places it in front of Natalie in I’m alive. Gabe is the physical manifestation of grief and mental health that is haunting the family. That’s the reason why his personality flipped so much in between the characters.<br><br>I have a hard time vilifying Dan in this. Because you don’t realize until the end, he never grieved. He spent this entire time (18 years) trying to make sure that Diana is OK and taking care of her. He never had the opportunity to grieve Gabe. So all his burst of anger, like breaking the music box are his mental crash outs. His what could be seen as “cruel” moments aren’t really cruel at all. He’s terrified he’s gonna lose his wife to her Illness if he mentions his son that he himself cannot talk about because he hasn’t grieved. This is almost confirmed by when Diana pulls out Gabe‘s baby things she attempts. He completely understands what she’s going through, because he’s struggling with mental illness too he just can’t focus on it because he has to focus on Diana.

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• TH

  @theguidinggamer8175 · 1 year ago

  I still think my favorite story detail hidden in the music is during Super Boy and the Invisible Girl. At the end of the song when Gabe starts to sing with Natalie, he steals the melody from her and forces her to the harmony, in turn bringing him to the forefront again and making her &quot;Invisible&quot; in the back with the harmony.

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• MI

  @Milo-fe6zo · 11 months ago

  “Dan doesn’t understand” this son died in his arms 😢

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