Jagged Little Pill is a jagged little musical, sometimes smooth, sometimes sharp, sometimes bland and predictable, sometimes edgy and shattering. This raw, uneven tale of modern angst in an upper-class Connecticut family employs Alanis Morisette’s groundbreaking 1995 album for its score. Tom Kitt did the skillful arrangements and orchestrations, combining Broadway smoothness with Morisette’s signature prickly texture. Her rage-filled tone informs the polished and funny book by Oscar winner Diablo Cody (“Juno”) who has crammed in so many current social issues it feels like a rock version of an Afterschool Special. We skip from opioid addiction to rape culture to marital miscommunication to bisexuality to racial identity with barely a pause for a breath, let alone a few minutes for reflection or analysis. Even climate change gets a brief mention.
Fortunately Cody infuses wit and pathos into her fast-forward preachiness and director Diane Paulus creates a inventive, surprising staging so that you don’t feel numbed by the constant crises.
The show opens with a chorus of refreshingly diverse dancers throwing themselves into Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s frenetic, all-body choreography. Then we meet the white-bread Healys who have a lot going on. Super mom Mary Jane (a steely and shattering Elizabeth Stanley) is addicted to painkillers and bent on presenting a perfect facade. Dad Steve (handsome Sean Allan Krill skillfully hiding pain) is constantly at the office, sneaking peaks at internet porn and avoiding the cracks in family life. Daughter Frankie (full-voiced and mature Celia Rose Gooding), who is African-American and adopted, feels pressured to conceal her emerging racial awareness and bisexuality. Straight-arrow son Nick (expressive Derek Klena) has been accepted to Harvard but feels empty inside.
The lead characters’ barrage of woes gets a bit tiring. The stories of Jo, Frankie’s secret girlfriend, and Bella, Nick’s classmate who is sexually assaulted at a party, emerge as more compelling. Lauren Patten’s Jo is funny, scathing, razor-sharp, and achingly human. She literally stops the show cold with her gut-wrenching rendition of “You Oughta Know,” Morisette’s break-up cry of pain. Kathryn Gallagher is equally memorable as the tormented Bella. To paraphrase one of Morisette’s hits, it’s ironic that the supporting figures are the real stars here.
As noted, Paulus gives us numerous dazzling sequences, particularly a heartbreaking backwards-in-time journey through Mary Jane’s day as she adds scoring illegal drugs to her shopping chores. Pill indeed has its jagged edges, but it’s ultimately a satisfying capsule.
