Jagged Little Time Capsule

“SETTING: The present.”

Jagged Little Pill, now playing at the American Repertory Theater, couldn’t be more au courant. This new adaption of the twenty three year old album by Alanis Morissette, brilliantly updated by Diablo Cody (screenwriter of Juno), creatively choreographed by Didi Larbi Cherkaoui, and made into a coherent whole by director Diane Paulus, is powerful in its confrontation with the ills of 2018.

Wisely eliding any overt political messages, this musical takes head-on issues of race, gender fluidity, rape and sexual assault, bystander responsibility, the ubiquity of internet porn as well as cyber eavesdropping, and the conspicuously hidden epidemic of opioid addiction. It does all this through mostly three-dimensional and relatable characters. We are presented with a plethora of characters: mother and father, brother and friend, two romantic interests, all of whom are tied together in direct and oblique ways by Frankie (Celia Gooding) and Bella (Kathryn Gallagher).

Each of these eight characters, as portrayed in the complicated, intertwined plot that unfolds, could be the protagonist of an interesting storyline in its own right. But as their lives and failings, longings and losses intermingle, powerful themes emerge, captivatingly represented through Cherkaoui’s dreamlike dance, out of the overlapping of stories, like harmonies out of eight separate melodies.

Which brings us to the music. Though we have been inundated with jukebox musicals recycling albums of the past to various degrees of success (think, Tommy, Movin’ Out, and Momma Mia!), this adaptation takes some very daring risks and for the most part they pay off. The lyrics, music, and sentiment of the original album (with some additional material seamlessly integrated) resonate with new force and meaning in a way that demonstrates just how ahead of the #MeToo times Morissette was in 1995.

However, though Morissette’s original work is strikingly fresh in this new production, the danger of the oh-so-now Jagged Little Pill musical is that it won’t pass the test of time. It will need updating in only a few years. This may not be the fault of any of the creators, but of the speed at which our culture is morphing such that terms like “pinterest fail” might fall flat in a mere matter of months.

That being the case, I couldn’t recommend going to see this musical fast enough, before it’s either gone, or gone onto Broadway.