by Barry Willis *

Through June 28, Walnut Creek’s CenterREP presents a daunting interpretation of Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill: The Musical. Directed by Matt M. Morrow in the Margaret Lesher Theatre, this Pill is in many ways an alternative vision to one launched in April by Marin Musical Theatre Company. 

Where MMTC’s show was wildly organic, CenterREP’s is highly stylized and formal, its set a collection of house-shaped boxes that the large cast moves about between and during the show’s many scenes. These boxes are configured to resemble a suburban neighborhood, or turned in various ways to serve as seating, or platforms for performers to dance on.

Choreographer Adin Walker makes every one of these changes an integral part of the show.  The backdrop by scenic designer Christopher Fitzer is a  neon silhouette of a house, on which are projected lots of compelling images—including a slow hailstorm of pills—by projections designer Yuki Izumihara.   

Written by Diablo Cody, based on Morissette’s best-selling album, Jagged Little Pill is an intractable cluster of personal, family, and social issues—all of them related and impossible to separate from one another, including middle-class pretentions,  liberal guilt, drug addiction, cultural and racial identity, teen angst, and sexual assault.

The primary plot revolves around a perky housewife named Mary Jane Healy, or “MJ,” played by Molly Bell. In the aftermath of a horrible auto accident, MJ’s become addicted to prescription painkillers but discovers that being more-or-less healed, she can’t renew her prescriptions. She turns instead to street drugs to salve her wounds—including gnawing anxiety about her dysfunctional relationships with her son Nick (Zeke Edmonds), her adopted daughter Frankie (Chanel Tilghman), and her workaholic, porn-addicted husband Steve (Keith Pinto). 

Driven by Erin Allen’s big band, Pill is a hard-rocking dissection of contemporary life delivered with enormous conviction by Bell, Tilghman, and Edmonds, but especially by Mario Houle as Phoenix, Frankie’s supportive classmate, and by Mickey Hanano Skinner as Jo, Frankie’s ardent would-be lover. Skinner’s performance of “You Oughta Know” is a stunner, a powerhouse performance. Grace Margaret Craig does a heart-rending interpretation of Bella, a teenage rape victim trying hard not to blame herself.  

CenterREP’s Jagged Little Pill is a honed-to-perfection professional production that could grace any Broadway stage—a  real entertainment bargain. Unlike MMTC’s version, this one closes with a rousing happy ending, an anthem reassuring the audience that all is well in suburban Connecticut. 

Playing through June 28, 2026 at Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek.

Click HERE for more information and tickets.

Photos by Kevin Berne

Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact:barry.m.willis@gmail.com