Next to Normal
Page 4
DAN: Natalie!
(Music changes.)
And this must be Harry!
GABE: It’s Henry.
DAN: A pleasure to finally meet you. Come in. Why don’t you join us for dinner?
(He puts his arm around Henry and ushers him in as Natalie follows.)
NATALIE: Um, Dad, Henry can’t really stay. He’s got, um . . .
DAN:It’s gonna be good!
NATALIE: . . . homework.
DAN:It’s gonna be good.
NATALIE: Surgery.
DAN:Gonna sit right down together
Like a happy fam’ly should.
NATALIE: Rabies.
DAN:And eat and talk and laugh and joke,
My pride, my brood, and me—
It’s gonna be good,
You’ll see.
(Without prompting, Gabe joins in happily:)
DAN AND GABE:We’ll smile and chat and just like that
We’ll all be all okay . . .
It’s gonna be great,
It’s gonna be great,
(Henry joins in cheerfully, and Natalie finally follows.
Diana serves and clears a full dinner in super-fast-motion. The rest grab forkfuls where they can.)
DAN, GABE, HENRY AND NATALIE:It’s gonna be gonna be gonna be great
That way . . .
Hey!
It’s gonna be good!
It’s gonna be good.
Gonna sit right down together
Like a happy fam’ly should.
And eat and talk and laugh and joke—
My family and me . . .
It’s gonna be good gonna be good
Gonna be gonna be gonna be
Gonna be gonna be
Good good good good
Good good good good
Good good good good
Gonna be good gonna be good—
It’s gonna be good you’ll see.
(Music ends. Diana enters with a birthday cake, blazing with candles.
But Gabe has disappeared.)
DIANA: Okay . . . It’s someone’s birthday!
HENRY (To Natalie): Whose birthday is it?
NATALIE (Small pause): My brother’s.
HENRY: I didn’t know you had a brother.
NATALIE: I don’t.
(Music.)
He died before I was born.
DIANA (A beat, sees them): What? What is it?
(Dan goes to Diana.)
he’s not here
DAN:He’s not here . . .
He’s not here.
Love, I know you know.
Do you feel
He’s still real?
Love, it’s just not so.
Why is it you still believe?
Do you dream or do you grieve?
You’ve got to let him go.
He’s been dead
All these years . . .
No, my love, he’s not here.
NATALIE: This is fucked.
DAN: Language.
NATALIE: Fuck this.
(A beat, then Natalie storms out. Henry moves to follow, pausing for:)
HENRY: It was wonderful to meet you both.
(He goes. Dan goes to Diana.)
DAN: What about the new meds?
DIANA: We have the happiest septic tank on the block.
DAN: You—Jesus, Di. They were working.
DIANA: They weren’t, really.
DAN: We’ll get a new round, we’ll call Doctor Fine—
DIANA: No.
DAN: Diana, look, I know this is hard.
(Music changes.)
DIANA: You know. Really? What, exactly, do you know?
DAN: I know you’re hurting. I am, too.
you don’t know
DIANA:Do you wake up in the morning
And need help to lift your head?
Do you read obituaries
And feel jealous of the dead?
It’s like living on a cliffside
Not knowing when you’ll dive . . .
Do you know
Do you know what it’s like to die alive?
When a world that once had color
fades to white and gray and black . . .
When tomorrow terrifies you
but you’ll die if you look back.
You don’t know.
I know you don’t know.
You say that you’re hurting—
It sure doesn’t show.
You don’t know . . .
It lays me so low
When you say let go
And I say
You don’t know
The sensation that you’re screaming
But you never make a sound,
Or the feeling that you’re falling
But you never hit the ground—
It just keeps on rushing at you
Day by day by day by day . . .
You don’t know
You don’t know what it’s like to live that way.
Like a refugee, a fugitive
forever on the run . . .
If it gets me, it will kill me—
but I don’t know what I’ve done.
i am the one
DAN:Can you tell me
What it is you’re afraid of?
And can you tell me why I’m afraid it’s me?
Can I touch you?
We’ve been fine for so long now,
How could something go wrong that I can’t see?
’Cause I’m holding on,
And I won’t let go
I just thought you should know . . .
I am the one who knows you,
I am the one who cares,
I am the one who’s always been there.
I am the one who’s helped you
And if you think that I just don’t give a damn,
Then you just don’t know who I am.
(Gabe appears, watching.)
DAN:GABE:
Could you leave me? Hey, Dad, it’s me.
Could you let me go under? Why can’t you see?
Will you watch as I drown
And wonder why? I wonder why.
(Gabe steps between Dan and Diana, and speaks to Dan, who continues to sing to Diana. Gabe continues to try to get his attention.)
Are you bleeding? Are you waiting, are you wishing,
Are you wanting all that she can’t give?
Are you bruised, are you broken? Are you hurting, are you healing,
Are you hoping for a life to live?
And does it help you to know
That so am I? Well, so am I.
Tell me what to do Look at me.
Tell me who to be Look at me.
So I can see what you see. And you’ll see . . .
I am the one who’ll hold you I am . . .
I am the one who’ll stay I am . . .
I am the one who won’t walk away. I won’t walk away.
I am the one who’ll hear you I am . . .
And now you tell me that
I won’t give a damn You don’t give a damn.
But I know you know who I am. Who I am
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
That’s who I am (yeah yeah yeah yeah) Who I am yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
DAN: GABE:
That’s who I am (yeah yeah yeah yeah) Who I am yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
That’s who I am.
DAN:’Cause I’m holding on . . .
DIANA:You say you hurt like me . . .
GABE:And I won’t let go . . .
DIANA:You say that you know . . . oh . . .
DAN AND GABE:DIANA:
Yeah, I thought you should know. You don’t know.
I am the one who knows you, I know you don’t know.
I am the one who cares, You say that you’re hurting,
I am the one who’s always been there. I know it ain’t so. You don’t know ...
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I am the one who
needs you Why don’t you just go?
And if you think that I just ’Cause it lays me low
Don’t give a damn When I say
Then you just don’t know who I am You don’t know . . .
Who I am You don’t know . . .
Who I am You don’t know . . .
GABE:You just don’t know who I am.
(Lights.
Music changes.
Natalie is in her room with Henry. He is working on something at her desk.)
NATALIE: When she gets like this? She’s useless. She can’t use the phone. Can’t drive.
HENRY: I bet she’s got great pills. I mean, not that I would go there. That shit’s inorganic.
NATALIE: And totally ineffective, apparently.
HENRY: I’m old-school. Dying breed. All the preppies and the jocks are raiding their parents’ medicine cabinets and popping Xanax and snorting Adderall.
NATALIE: Really?
HENRY: But me, I’m the master of the lost art of making a pipe out of an apple.
(He proudly reveals his handiwork . . .)
NATALIE: Yeah, you’re the MacGyver of pot.
(. . . and he offers it to her.)
You promise this’ll help?
HENRY: No.
(She considers it, then turns away.)
What?
superboy and the invisible girl
NATALIE:Superboy and the invisible girl . . .
Son of steel and daughter of air.
He’s a hero, a lover, a prince—
She’s not there.
Superboy and the invisible girl . . .
Everything a kid oughta be.
He’s immortal, forever alive—
Then there’s me.
I
Wish I could fly
And magically appear and disappear.
I
Wish I could fly—
I’d fly far away from here.
(Diana gently opens the door. Henry hides the pipe and fans the air, and Natalie whips around to confront her mother:) Superboy and the invisible girl—
He’s the one you wish would appear.
He’s your hero, forever your son—
He’s not here.
I am here.
DIANA:You
Know that’s not true.
You’re our little pride and joy, our perfect plan.
You
Know I love you . . .
I love you as much as I can.
(A beat as this lands. Then, awkwardly, Diana leaves.)
NATALIE:Take a look at the invisible girl . . .
Here she is, clear as the day.
Please look closely and find her before
She fades away.
(Through a wall, Gabe appears in Natalie’s room. Natalie and Henry do not see him.)
NATALIE AND GABE:Superboy and the invisible girl . . .
Son of steel and daughter of air.
He’s a hero, a lover, a prince—
She’s not there . . .
She’s not there . . .
(She sits by Henry. He pulls the pipe out of hiding, and offers it.)
She’s not there . . .
She’s not there.
(She takes the pipe from Henry.
Music ends.
Lights.
Diana and Dan in a waiting room. Dan is writing in a notebook.)
DAN: Let’s not get discouraged. We’ll find a doctor who’ll treat you without the drugs. There’s someone out there for you—in the depression chat rooms, they say it’s like dating, you have to keep going until you find the right match.
DIANA: They have depression chat rooms?
DAN: And this doctor’s supposed to be fantastic. A real rock star. Three different women at work gave me his name.
DIANA: Three women at work know I’m nuts?
DAN (Half beat): Uhh . . . (Turns, looking for relief) Ah!
(Doctor Madden appears.)
DOCTOR MADDEN: Diana? This way, please.
(She walks past him into his inner office, studying him. Once she’s past him—music, a chord, lights hit—and he’s briefly a rock star.)
Yeah . . .
DIANA (Spins around; lights restore): What did you just say?
DOCTOR MADDEN (A doctor again): I said welcome. Have a seat. It’s nice to meet you.
(Watching him suspiciously, she sits, turns, and—another chord—he’s a rock star again:)
Let’s get it on now, baby . . .
DIANA: Excuse me, what?
DOCTOR MADDEN (Now not a rock star): I said, let’s get started. Are you . . . nervous, Diana?
DIANA: I am, a little. A bit out of breath. Tingly, actually. (He nods, waits) Now you go.
DOCTOR MADDEN: Well, let’s start by getting to know each other a bit. Psychotherapy and medication work best in tandem, but we can try the first alone, and see how far we get. Why don’t you tell me—
(A sudden chord—and he’s a rock star again:) Bay-bee . . . what’s your history?
Where’d you go and who’d you see? Yeah . . .
(And just like that he’s not a rock star.)
DIANA: Um. My history?
(He nods mildly.)
Well—I was diagnosed bipolar, um, wow, sixteen years ago?
But it turned out bipolar didn’t totally cover it.
DOCTOR MADDEN: Often the best we can do is put names on collections of symptoms. It’s possible bipolar has more in common with schizophrenia than depression.
DIANA: When I was young, my mother called me “high-spirited.” She would know. She was so high-spirited they banned her from the PTA.
DOCTOR MADDEN: Sometimes there’s a predisposition to illness, but actual onset is only triggered by some . . . traumatic event.
DIANA: I never know what to say when I have to go over all this. It starts to sound like some story I tell that’s about some other person entirely.
DOCTOR MADDEN: Why don’t you tell me about the last time you truly felt happy.
(She has no answer for him.)
Were you happy when you got married?
DIANA: I thought I was.
DOCTOR MADDEN: There’s a difference between being happy and just thinking you’re happy?
DIANA: Most people who think they’re happy just haven’t thought about it enough. Most people who think they’re happy are actually just stupid.
DOCTOR MADDEN: I see. Were you happy when your son was born?
(Music changes.)
DIANA: My son?
(Gabe appears, watching.)
DOCTOR MADDEN: Tell me about him.
DIANA: About my son?
DOCTOR MADDEN: Why is he still around? Who is he? What is he?
(Diana does not answer. Gabe sings:)
i’m alive
GABE:I am what you want me to be,
And I’m your worst fear—you’ll find it in me.
Come closer . . .
Come closer . . .
DOCTOR MADDEN: Where does he come from, do you think?
(Doctor Madden and Diana sit in silence . . .)
GABE:I am more than memory—
I am what might be, I am mystery.
You know me—
So show me.
(. . . as Gabe circles them.)
When I appear it’s
Not so clear if
I’m a simple spirit or I’m flesh and blood . . .
(Now rock star lights hit him and he sings to us:)
But I’m alive
I’m alive
I am so alive,
And I feed on the fear that’s behind your eyes.
And I need you
To need me
It’s no surprise—
I’m alive . . .
So alive . . .
I’m alive.
(Natalie, with backpack, has just arrived home from school.)
NATALIE: Four times a week? That’s a lot, isn’t it?
DAN: It’s what the doctor recommended.
NATALIE (After a pause): This is never going to get better, is it?
(Gabe joins them, listening.)
He’s never going away.
DAN: I don’t know, Natalie.
NATALIE: This is one of those moments when you could just be a typical parent and lie and say yes.