Jagged Little Pill (Part 2)

Earlier this week, I discussed what made Jagged Little Pill have a ton of potential as a musical. Now I want to discuss what really feels like is holding back this musical from being exceptional: the book. I want to discuss the issue as well as suggest a small potential fix, though I’m admittedly unsure if the creative team has any interest in doing so or really if they can do so. I’ll get into that.

First, I want to say that Jagged Little Pill should be commended for taking on social issues. We live in a volatile time, and this musical makes no apologies for being a musical that slams itself entirely in the now. In fact, it might not work in a few years as the pressure points and political realities change. Themes of human struggle and oppression are, unfortunately, timeless, but addressing some issues so head on makes this a piece that feels as if it was written solely for now. The issue honestly comes in how many issues were actually brought up.

This is a list of issues addressed at least partially in the musical that I made with my girlfriend and good friend following seeing the musical this past weekend (this list does not address how in-depth these issues are considered, which is an issue we will get to): rape, racial tension, white knight syndrome, parental expectations, difficulties of parenting, comparing your children to their peers, natural hair, sexual assault, victim blaming, “silence is violence”, gun violence, infidelity, porn addiction, body dysmorphia, classism, gender spectrum, gender issues, gay and lesbian relationships, couples therapy, marriage counseling, individual therapy, medical disabilities, absentee fathers, single mothers, drug addiction, overdose, self-blame, opiate epidemic, what a “drug addict” looks like, repressing your own demons, veganism, infertility, adoption, white people not “seeing color”, and miscarriages. This list took about 10 minutes of discussion to make and almost certainly isn’t exhaustive.

Damn. Like read back that list and tell me that isn’t a heavy ass list of issues. Again, kudos to Jagged Little Pill for taking them head on. The problem is that each of these issues is incredibly complex, deserving of a lot of time, and needing a lot of energy to fully and completely address them. This is a full-length musical, but it isn’t a seven-hour piece. There isn’t enough time to fully address all of these issues and it feels that more than one is in the piece as an acknowledgement of “this is important” and then moving onward with the rest of the story. An issue is pointed at, we all nod and agree it is important, and it is left behind. I think it leads to a lot of distraction of the story.

I imagine the counter argument to this is that it is a reflection of life. Life isn’t simple, and one person might be dealing with a ton of issues. Life isn’t simple, of course, but life also doesn’t have to tell a narrative. Life doesn’t have to have a complete arc within a couple of hours. By cramming so many issues into this piece and not fully addressing them, it feels like a lot are underdeveloped and not given the proper light they deserve.

When walking out of this musical, I thought of another musical that deals with a ton of overlapping storylines and issues for all of its characters: Rent. Rent is a musical I really like, and while it gives a ton of story arcs and spotlights a ton of issues, there is one narrative thread throughout that affects all of the characters: the AIDS crisis of the 80s and 90s. From the characters’ relationships, financial struggles, and friendships, every character is affected by this arc. All of the disparate parts feel like a cohesive unit because behind it all this is a story about friends dealing with the AIDS crisis. Cohesion brings the disparate together.

On the other hand, I’m not sure what Jagged Little Pill is about. It’s about a mother’s struggling relationship with her daughter except when it’s about drug addiction except when it’s about sexual assault and victim blaming. There needs to be a narrative thread throughout that holds it together. The mother is the closest thing they have to this—the way the mother relates to and struggles with all of these issues. But one character dealing with gender identity is completely removed from the mother—it feels therefore like an aside in a way that it shouldn’t because it’s arguably the most interesting arc. Trimming down and adapting the storylines to fit one cohesive thread will take this jumble of issues and make them the strong, powerful show that this can be.

But how do you fix this? In trimming issues, the creative team will be almost certain to face criticisms of choosing which issue is more important than the other. I don’t think this is a fair criticism, but it is one I can see occurring. All of the issues highlighted are worthy of deeper discussion, but this book doesn’t do most of them justice. It doesn’t give them weight or appropriate gravitas.

Ultimately the problems with Jagged Little Pill, a musical that as I said has incredibly strong elements and real potential, is that is tries to do way too much and highlight way too many struggles. Life is real, life is immeasurably complex, and life is difficult. Making a show with all of these things is possible, but only if it’s done cohesively. When the musical tries to do too much, it finds itself spread too thin.