My [American] Psychopharmacologist and I: Next to Normal on the West End and the revival’s usage of the American accent

When Next to Normal was adapted for a UK audience, it projected the idea that to have a mental health crisis is synonymous with being American.

Next to Normal (2009) was a groundbreaking musical about mental health struggles that traversed a seemingly average American family. Since then, this musical has not graced the Broadway stage, despite being considered one of the most important artistic endeavors of the 21st century. However, in 2024, after a successful Donmar Warehouse run in 2023, it officially crossed the pond to the West End while still depicting the same, average American family. The question is: should the musical continue to exclusively represent some semblance of the United States, or should it adapt to its particular cultural audience?

The purpose of asking this question is that the original musical's setting revolves around a standard suburban household in the United States. In particular, this setting is emphasized during the song “Better Than Before.” Atlantic City. Portland. Grand Canyon. These places are not necessarily where the Goodman family’s house on “Walton Way” is located, but they do indicate the family’s easy proximity to these American locations. Essentially, there is no lyric about how these places required a grand, transatlantic vacation; they must live close enough to drive or take a short flight. That said, the combination of geographical familiarity and spoken American accents suggests the family's limited national origin.

What is more, this limited nationality is creatively self-imposed. Given that there is no information about Diana and Dan’s exact place of birth or heritage (the audience only knows they met in college), it is entirely plausible that they could be from another country living in the United States. Yet, the UK production of Next to Normal continued to honor the creative choices made by the original Broadway storytellers. Ultimately, for this international theatrical endeavor, the Goodman family was chosen to be distinctly American in their plight.

The significance of this is the conditionality that a specific and permanent setting creates. In most narratives, the message, or thematic material, is contingent on factors such as time and place. This means that the overarching lesson derived from the narrative requires the exclusivity of a locational context. Because the UK production of Next to Normal maintained the American English tradition, the musical, as an artistic piece, assumed a contextual permanence that was never technically imposed on the original Broadway production. For this reason, the musical’s thematic depiction of mental health conclusively depends on where the narrative specifically takes place.

Contrarily, there is no textual evidence in the given source material to warrant this type of exclusivity. In fact, due to the ambiguous character backgrounds, it should be entirely up to the individual creative team’s discretion. However, this discretion was seemingly not taken. Instead, what could have been a musical that is capable of transcending the time and place in which it was written, the West End production of Next to Normal solidifies the musical as an object of American permanence. The object being, that is, the American prerequisite for the existence of mental health struggles.

As brilliant as the UK’s Next to Normal was (and, truly, it was a brilliant piece of art and media), mental health should be projected as a universal concept, not a conditional one. Moreover, the only way that this is possible is by embracing the opportunity that an international rendition offers: the privilege to tell a culturally different, but shockingly common, story. To say the least, if the characters had adopted a British accent and used American geography explicitly, the audience would have been disoriented in trying to accurately place the characters' origins, as it would have been deliberately unclear. In this way, the musical's material would be used to emphasize ambiguity, better relating to the audience’s personal and lived experiences. To a British audience, then, the message would be that to be mentally ill is not to be American, but rather to be merely human.

To conclude, a conversation should be held about the differences between the domestic and international impact of a musical that directly addresses global themes such as mental health. Without these conversations, the advancement of mental health awareness often stagnates regionally when it should be more broadly interpreted.