JAGGED LITTLE PILL

The companion volume to the stage adaptation of Morissette’s Grammy-winning album.

In 2019, fans of the 1995 megahit Jagged Little Pill were blessed with a Broadway jukebox musical adaptation (the production premiered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2018). This complementary book, co-written by Morissette and screenwriter Cody, with photos by Murphy, vividly combines song lyrics and cast stories with bright collages, eye-catching imagery, and effectively captured stage photography from pre-pandemic performances in Manhattan. The musical follows the affluent Healy family: pill-popping mother Mary Jane; distant, workaholic father Steve; and teenage brother and sister Nick and Frankie. Nick is a Harvard-bound senior with an overinflated ego. Frankie, the adopted, bisexual, feminist Black daughter, emerges as the most politically charged character, thrust into a predominantly White community that’s not always racially tolerant. As hidden secrets, sexual assault, opioid dependency, denial, and youthful angst consume the family, lyrics to the album’s hits interweave through the narrative. Two resonant essays capture the essence of the drama: Cultural critic Rachel Syme expresses her high hopes that the book will provide a fitting place marker during the Covid-19 era while the theater is dark and the sets and props are “gathering dust, waiting for the day that the show can go on.” In her commentary, Morissette chronicles the album’s genesis and enduring relevance, and she remarks on how the production has impacted her on a personal healing level. The book provides a line-by-line script of the production along with behind-the-scenes footnotes and directorial and cast commentary, resulting in a colorful assembly of art, music, and activist messaging. “I didn’t make it any easier by deciding the show would deal with the opioid epidemic, sexual assault, political activism, and religion,” writes Cody in the afterword. “This was not a dance-in-the-aisles jukebox musical with a featherweight story; as much as I enjoy those shows, I wanted [this one] to be as real and provocative as the album that inspired it.”

A moving, well-rendered keepsake and a must-purchase for fans.