Review: A blistering lead performance in ‘Jagged Little Pill’ at Nederlander Theatre
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Heidi Blickenstaff only played the lead in the jukebox musical “Jagged Little Pill” at the very end of the successful Broadway run. Very few of her fans saw her in the role in the feminist tuner penned around the music of Alanis Morissette. I didn’t have the pleasure, although I’ve long admired Blickenstaff’s oft-unsung work elsewhere.
But Blickenstaff, one of those Broadway actors who deserves to be a much bigger name, was on fire at Chicago’s Nederlander Theatre on Thursday night. This was a blistering performance, sufficiently vocally rich to delight fans of Morissette’s music but also dramatically complex enough to deepen a character that came off on Broadway mostly as a stereotype of an affluent Connecticut mom.
Not on the tour. It’s remarkable how much Blickenstaff’s presence, especially her blending of determination and vulnerability, improves this show. That said, it’s also not unusual for shows to get better on a second production. In fact, this is the second production that has arrived in Chicago this season under the original direction of Diane Paulus that I’ve thought vastly improved (”1776″ was the first).
“Jagged Little Pill,” which features a book by Diablo Cody (“Juno”), is a jukebox show with an original plot. Its basis is the remarkable Morissette album of that name, first recorded in 1995 in collaboration with the songwriter and producer Glen Ballard, and that sold some 33 million copies. At the time, the Canadian Morissette was pivoting from a grungy kind of pop to more politically conscious work focused on such topics as women’s mental health, female friendship and empowerment, and the anger and pain present in women who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of men. Anthemic masterpieces like “You Oughta Know” epitomized those themes. It was both a cathartic and a prescient piece of art.
By the time the album had become a musical, the women who first listened to “Jagged Little Pill” often were showing up with their daughters and, indeed, there were many mother-and-daughter pairings present on Thursday night, as there were large groups of women who came of age in the 1990s. That said, the show cleverly focused more on young women, extending the reach of the music to a new generation.
Cody’s story imagined the experience of Mary Jane Healy, a wealthy Connecticut mom, always an easy target, with an overworking lawyer-husband, ditto (played by Chris Hoch). The couple has an overachieving, superficially perfect older son (Dillon Klena), a high school senior headed to Harvard, and an adopted 16-year-old Black daughter named Frankie (played by Lauren Chanel), who is angry at her white parents who she feels have erased her identity. Frankie’s sometimes girlfriend Jo (Jade McLeod) gets to belt out a key number (I won’t spoil the story by saying when and where). And in this case, McLeod does exactly that, to justly deserved audience acclaim.
This little family is traumatized by events in Mary Jane’s and their teenagers’ lives. In essence, the adults have to confront their own pain to be able to help their kids and everyone has to learn to take responsibility for their actions. “Jagged Little Pill” is as moralistic a musical as you ever did see, going far more in that direction than did the more ironic album. The book is certainly predictable in its trajectory but that didn’t seem to matter to an audience more focused on what it makes you feel. And fair enough. That’s why people go to musicals.
On Broadway, I found the show overstuffed, simplistic and filled with cliches. The number of hot-button issues on display remains dizzying but I felt less that way this time around, a consequence of the passage of time that has helped this show, the passion and commitment of this young road ensemble and, most of all, the thrilling presence of Blickenstaff.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
Review: “Jagged Little Pill” (3 stars)
When: Through April 23
Where: Nederlander Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St.
Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Tickets: $35-$125 at 800-775-2000 and www.broadwayinchicago.com
