When “Girl, Interrupted” first hit theaters in 1999, its raw, gritty portrayal of women’s mental health struggles and breakout performances from Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder cemented its status as a cult classic.
Two decades later, the musical adaptation of “Girl, Interrupted” will make its world premiere at the Public Theater later this month, translating a familiar story into an entirely new medium for an audience that may not have been around the first time to see it.
Both the film — and this latest musical adaptation — pull from the same source material: Susanna Kaysen’s bestselling memoir detailing her time in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s.
The memoir, originally released in 1993, shocked audiences with an uncensored recounting of a fraught period in which female patients, including Kaysen and her fellow companions at the hospital, were routinely subjected to abuse disguised as treatment, fueled in part by antiquated ideas around gender and sexuality.
This latest iteration is years in the making, with Grammy award-winning songwriter Aimee Mann having discussed her involvement in the musical adaption as far back as 2018 in an interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Kaysen as well as Pulitzer-winning playwright Martyna Majok and Tony Award nominee Jo Bonney are also part of the team helping to bring the story back to life.
Mikaela Straus, the musician known professionally as King Princess, will take the helm as Lisa Rowe, a patient whose intimate relationship with Kaysen has often been discussed for its queer subtext. Jolie’s performance as Rowe in the film adaptation won her an Oscar.
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“I feel privileged to get to really lean into that as a gay person,” Straus told Gothamist. “It feels cathartic for me as a gay kid who was a cinephile to take that character and embody it with my queer, gay-ass body, y’know?”
It’ll mark the theatrical debut for the singer-songwriter, who said she saw parallels between the story’s subject matter and what it means to exist as “young, non-male people in this country.”
“There are so many reasons why this is relevant,” Straus said. “It’s also a story about community and friendship and finding people in a place of chaos and a place of pain and wanting to cling onto each other and find friendship. I love this story.”
Straus is not the only member of the musical’s cast who said they felt a personal connection to the story’s characters, despite the tale being set decades before some of the actors were born.
Katherine Reis, who will play Daisy Randone, a character originally portrayed by the late Brittany Murphy in the 1999 film, described herself as a longtime fan of the tale.
“I think we all experience shame and loneliness, and this desire for community and wanting to be seen and chosen. I certainly can relate to that and I think a lot of other people can,” she said.
"Girl, Interrupted" will run at the Public Theater’s Martinson Hall, in NoHo, from May 3 to June 28, with an official opening on June 4.
