WHAT IS WORSE? SYMPTOM OR CURE?

Diana Goodman (Keely Vasquez) and her husband Dan (David Schlumpf) have built a nearly ideal life. Two children. An upper-middle class home. And a truly loving connection early on in the compelling David Cromer-directed musical, “Next to Normal,” which opened at Writers Theatre Wednesday evening. But Diana’s day-to-day reality is consumed by a series of memories that keep her unsettled during the day and awake at night—some raw, troubling and filled with sadness; others suffused with euphoria and light. “Everything is perfect,” she sings, “Nothing’s real.”