Alanis Morissette wasn’t sure about Jagged Little Pill musical

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Jagged Little Pill

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Presented by Broadway Across Canada
May 30 to June 4, Southam Hall, National Arts Centre
Tickets & times: ottawa.broadway.com/shows/jagged-little-pill/

Alanis Morissette had just turned 21 when she released her third studio album, Jagged Little Pill, in 1995, and the songs she created with producer Glen Ballard demonstrated everything from alt-rock-driven anger to raw vulnerability.

The record was a game-changer that sold millions, earned dozens of awards and established the Glebe High School grad as a superstar.

Now, it’s taken a completely new form as a Broadway musical.

But instead of putting Morissette’s own emotional angst on display, the show tells the story of the fictional Healy family, with each song from the tracklist illustrating an aspect of a family member’s journey.

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In this excerpt of an interview from her home in California, where she lives with her husband Mario “Souleye” Treadway and their three children, the Ottawa native talks about her role in the production’s creative process, how she didn’t want the show to turn into a jukebox musical and what it’s like to be on the “receiving” end of the songs.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What sparked the idea to make Jagged Little Pill into a musical?

A: The producers ran the idea past me in New York about 11-and-a-half years ago, and I remember my response was, “This sounds intriguing, but I have zero interest in creating a jukebox musical. That doesn’t inspire me.” I thought the only way we could do it was if the book and the writing was inextricably married to the music.

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Q: When did the creative team come together?

A: I was in a really privileged position in that they introduced me to different Pulitzer Prize-winning writers. My mind was blown with the people that I was meeting except there was no immediate ‘yes.’ So it took about eight years to finally meet Diablo Cody, and then Diane Paulus was super excited to sign on, so all of a sudden it was Tom Kitt for music, Diane directing, and Diablo Cody and I putting our heads together, and I thought, ‘Wow, it was worth staying the course.’ It felt like the four of us at the top of our individual unique games. The collective collaborative payoff was massive for us personally, as artists. 

Q: How did the characters evolve?

A: Basically, we sat together and Diablo would burr the characters through listening to the songs. Listening to Mary Jane, listening to All I Really Want, she came up with the Healy family from the songs. I think that’s how it became so cohesive. Otherwise, my sense is that it would have been awkward or disjointed even, but because the characters were born from the pre-existing narrative, they were married really smoothly.

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Q: Was there a period of intense creativity?

A: Yes. When it was Diablo and Diane and I left to do our thing, we were off to the races. We sat in Malibu in front of my whiteboard — I’m such a whiteboard person, I have them everywhere — and we went through the songs and the narrative and the storyline and the characters and it was literally Diane saying, ‘So this particular character, at the juncture they’re at, what song could they sing?’  And I’d always have my hand up, like in the classroom, and say ‘They could sing Reckoning.’ It was like throwing all these songs around and when they would land, it was just a big ‘yes’ on all our parts. That’s a little glimpse of the process.

Q: What about the choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui?

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A: When I saw Larbi’s work, I freaked out. It’s somatic, it’s psychodrama, which I live for. It sort of blends everything I do, which is feeling highly responsible for the movement of energy, and how he communicates wordlessly through physicality is breathtaking. Just beholding and doing a deep, deep dive into Larbi’s work took my breath away. I felt like I was in the presence of so many masters. We all had a big bow to each other every day.

Q: Like many musicals, the show had an initial off-Broadway run in the Boston area in 2018. Did it get tightened up a bit after that?

A: Yeah, that’s where you cut your teeth. We were basically seeing what felt right, what felt overwhelming, what felt undeveloped. That’s the purpose of doing it there to begin with. At that time, a lot of people were saying to me, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of intense content in here. Are you scared that you’re going to overwhelm people?’ And my answer then, and it remains to this day, is ‘I refuse to underestimate the audience.’ If anyone is looking around at life in real-time, life is complex. It’s not a basic primary colour experience, it’s a very whole experience and depending on what age you are and how you identify with what’s going on in your environment, there’s a lot to grapple with. And it’s being grappled with in the entire family structure of the Healys.

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Q: How did it feel for you to see the songs and characters come together?

A: As you might imagine, I’ve never received these songs. I’ve been, in some ways, just monologuing them around the planet, so to be in the audience and receiving it, and not just receiving my version of it, but receiving the characters’ version of it — and particularly when listening to Steve, the father character, singing Mary Jane, what? To hear a man body being vulnerable in that kind of deeply empathic way? Even talking about it, I get a little welled up.

Q: You also wrote a couple of new songs, right?

A: Yeah. (The song) Predator felt really great for Bella and that whole scene, and to be transparent, there was apprehension on the producers’ part to look into sexual abuse and assault and all of that. I was like, ‘With all due respect, but I’m the one that everyone will want to speak with and I’m the one who has to back everything up, and I can stand by the recovery from sexual assault because I’ve been through it many times.’ I was being a little cheeky with them but I’m not sure it’s a man’s place to talk about content of female sexual abuse so I went forward with it.

Q: Have you seen the musical a bunch of times?

A: Oh yeah. I’ve seen it many, many times. I was there in Cambridge, I was all over Broadway, and I’ve been seeing a lot of the shows on tour.

Q: Will you visit Ottawa to see it at the NAC?

A: I would love to. It’s during a time when I may or may not physically be able to be there but I’m dying to be there. If I can sneak up there, I will.

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