It is now thirty years since Alanis Morissette released her album Jagged Little Pill, and its stage incarnation is set to arrive in Santa Barbara with a fresh staging. Academy Award-winning writer Cody Diablo extends the angst-filled textures of Morissette’s songs.
Out of the Box founder Samantha Eve was in the midst of directing the show when she spoke with me about the challenges of staging a Broadway show in the dimensions of Center Stage’s more intimate setting. “The show opened in New York just before COVID hit,” Eve explains. “It never really had the opportunity to reach its full audience. Doing it here, in Center Stage’s black box space, gives us a chance to focus on the human dimension of the story—the closeness, the quiet moments.” A rock concert at the scale of a family therapy session.
The family in question, the Healys, face problems common to American families. The mother, Mary Jane, suffers from an opioid addiction she picked up after an injury, while the father tries to lose himself in his work. And then there are the teenagers: an adopted daughter troubled by the racial and wealth disparities around her, and the son who is not quite up to the challenge of being the golden boy and family savior. The emotional weight of songs like “You Oughta Know,” “Hand in My Pocket,” and “Ironic” demands characters with big demons to exorcise. Eve describes how the new context reframes Morrisette’s signature tunes: “these familiar songs acquire new layers of meaning. You hear the lyrics differently when they’re tied to characters struggling to be honest with themselves.”…