At the end of Next to Normal Dan finally addresses his son. Gabe says, "...you've always known who I am." and then Dan says, "Gabe. Gabriel." talking to him specifically for the first time. Knowing that Diana was schizophrenic and also saw him, it leaves the audience wondering, is Dan now schizophrenic? Is he going to go through the same troubles as his wife? Is this traumatic event his trigger? Or will he be able to see him and still remember the truth. This ambiguity really engaged me, and even though it's at the end of the play, it drew me in and made me really care about the characters.
The other Hornby element that stood out to me was progression, in the form of Gabe's "I'm alive" song. He says, "I'm alive. I'm alive. I am so alive, and I feed on the fear that's behind your eyes."It's clear his character feeds off of the weakness of others, specifically Diana. He always shows up at the most inopportune moments, and the way Yorkey has written the script makes the audience resent him because of it. For me personally, because of this progression of him always popping up and being a burden on Diana's soul I grew to dislike his character. Even though he wasn't alive, I hated the fact that his spirit was essentially ruining people's lives. I think these feelings came from Yorkey's progression of Gabe being "alive" even though he's truly dead.
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ReplyDelete*Sorry this is being posted again. The first one was gramatically incorrect.*
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your analysis and you've brought up some great points, but there are a few things that I don't think are quite valid. Just to verify, Diana is actually bipolar depressive rather than schizophrenic, and her hallucinations of Gabe are just a symptom of her preexisting condition rather than the emergence of an entirely different mental illness. The way I've always viewed Gabe is that he is the manifestation of the family's grief, depression, anger, etc. and the reason Dan can see him at the end of the piece is because he is finally able to acknowledge his pain and take the time to grieve the loss of his son, just like Gabe's line, "If you won't grieve me, you won't leave me behind." I believe that Dan's acknowledgement of Gabe is the metaphorical acknowledgement of his depression, and by the end of the piece he is now willing to work on himself to accept his pain in order to begin a new stage of his life with Natalie.
I thought the exact same thing about Gabe when I read the musical. It's weird because it does not really make sense for you to think of Gabe as an antagonist, but if you think about it, he kind of is. Maybe not Gabe literally, but what Gabe represents. The whole time Diana struggles with letting him go and the whole time Gabe is fighting to stay with her, but because of this she keeps having these detremental manic episodes and at one point event attempts suicide.
ReplyDeleteI really like all of the questions you came up with about Dan seeing Gabe. This part also caught my attention. The choice to leave these questions unanswered was a bold one. It leaves the audience to pinpoint what they think it means, if it means anything at all. And you are right to say that it engages the audience. It makes them think back to the beginning of the play and how Dan has changed throughout the production. Your last paragraph brought up some good points. You say you resent Gabe even though he is a spirit. It almost overshadows who he really was. He was just an infant and Diana can only see him as what he would be today. And what he is today is a disease. Even though she remembers him because he was such a good thing in her life, he has transformed into a bad thing. Kitt and Yorkey do a good job at emphasizing this.
ReplyDeleteI like how you said you almost dislike Gabe at times. I think that this is a great dynamic to the plot aside from the music. Gabe's character stirring the emotions of the family tears you as an audience member between wanting Gabe to be and feel alive and with his family, and his family finally moving on without him.
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