What I liked
The script!
The cast!
The design!
The direction!
What I didn't like
Hmmmm…well, the lead actor didn’t really resemble Peter Kurten that much I guess.
My overall impression
A friend of mine once said those of us who like the darkness are not ourselves dark or cruel—but we don’t flee from the shadows in our lives. We face them, seek to explore them. I’ve mentioned this to some, and gotten a blank look of bafflement in reply. But this show proves a shining (heh) example of what my friend understood. NORMAL lets us into the darkest, most terrible and yet strangely attractive aspect of human life, inviting us to at least imagine what it would be like to live there. Darkness makes the light and all colors so much more beautiful, really. Evil is necessary if there is to be virtue, and cruelty can only be the opposite coin of kindness (and vice versa of course). Emerging from the Underworld, we are shaken but more wise, tested and hopefully improved. Not a pretty thing. But “beautiful” is more important than “pretty” and “beautiful” can also be “ugly” at the exact same time.
