‘Fun Home’ star answers ‘de-butching’ charge
The Tony Award-winning “Fun Home” was a breakthrough moment for telling LGBT stories on the Broadway stage. But the national tour of the musical — which opens at ASU Gammage in Tempe on Tuesday, Sept. 5 — has become the latest skirmish in the theater world’s war over representation.
Kate Shindle, a straight woman and former Miss America, was cast in the role of Alison Bechdel, the acclaimed cartoonist whose graphic memoir inspired the musical. Noting costume changes, a 19year-old blogger writing as “sinister woman” took umbrage, saying producers were “de-butching” the character, possibly at Shindle’s behest:
“Now, she is being portrayed as a woman who grew up, accepted she wanted short hair, but maintained all other aspects of enforced femininity. … (But) maybe it wasn’t Kate Shindle’s fault at all. Maybe it was a result of the ever-present need to make the show more palatable to an overwhelmingly straight public.”
In today’s “call-out culture,” this charge immediately got picked up by theater sites, prompting playwright Lisa Kron, who helped adapt Bechdel’s book, to write an open letter denying the costume changes were designed to tone down the character’s butch identity.
Shindle — a longtime advocate for LGBT rights who also serves as president of Actors’ Equity Association, the national theater union — couldn’t help but take the controversy a bit personally.
“I think the writer of that piece drew some conclusions about me based on what may have been her perceptions about Miss America and thought that perhaps I had encouraged them to un-butch the costume a bit. Which to me is just preposterous,” Shindle said in a recent interview.
“What sentient person signs on to play Alison Bechdel and then goes, ‘Oh, but you know what, I just think the character should be a little more feminine’?”
For the record, both Shindle and Kron say the costume changes were necessary because of Shindle’s body type.
“When we got into tech rehearsals, I was wearing the same T-shirt that Beth Malone wore on Broadway,” Shindle said. “And although nobody came to me and said, ‘Wow, that looks awful on you,’ judging by the alacrity with which costume pieces started showing up in my dressing room, I thought maybe it just wasn’t the right thing for my particular physique.
“Even when I was sort of a scrawny girl in my 20s, I still have always been built like a swimmer, so that ringer tee is just not the most flattering look on me. I wish I could have worn that costume — it’s so iconic — but they just didn’t think it was the right fit.”
Nonetheless, Shindle believes the debate over representation is healthy, especially in her role with Actors’ Equity.
“This is one of the most important conversations going on across the industry right now,” she said. “It’s interesting to me how much this has evolved in 10 years, to the point where our members don’t want to see white women playing Evita in the same way that was acceptable 10 years ago. And maybe 10 years from now we will be in a situation where I would be advised against auditioning for ‘Fun Home.’
“I am of two minds. I think that we have to be very careful with the notion that you should only play the thing you are, because that has caused a lot of challenges for traditionally underrepresented communities in the past. … At the same time, I believe that actors should do a gut check before they go in to audition for a role and ask themselves if they feel that there’s enough of their personal experience for them to legitimately feel like they should be playing those roles. Because you know what? There are some times that those of us with a lot of opportunities need to just clear the decks and let people that have historically had fewer opportunities get a chance.”