Just watched the Next to Normal pro shot.
The first act, Diana interacts with Gave so much that you start to feel that you know him.
It is only when Diana begs Dan for his name that I realized I didn’t know if either. It felt like a KNEW this kid but I didn’t even know his name — even as it felt in the tip of my tongue.
Gabe is a ‘mystery’ to us, the audience, and we never truly get to know him because there isn’t really a person to /know/. The only things we ever truly know about Gabriel are his names, that he was a fussy baby soothed by a music box, and that he /died/.
Just thought it was neat how firmly that point is driven in in the second act.















