Graphic novel begets musical masterpiece
The Tony-winning coming-of-age story ‘Fun Home’ arrives in Mountain View
“Fun Home” is an emotional roller coaster of a show. Now playing at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, this superb TheatreWorks Silicon Valley production is helmed by artistic director Robert Kelley. It’s a joyous and heartwarming coming-of-age story about a young lesbian woman discovering her sexuality, and at the same time, it’s a heartbreaking exploration of her loving, but troubled relationship with her deeply closeted father.
Based on the 2006 graphic memoir by cartoonist Alison Bechdel (also known for the Bechdel Test introduced in her comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For”), the 2013 Tony Award-winning musical’s book and lyrics are by Lisa Kron (“Well,” “In the Wake”) with marvelous music by Jeanine Tesori (“Caroline, or Change,” “Soft Power”). After its hit 2015 Broadway production, the show first played the Bay Area on tour last year at the Curran in San Francisco.
There are three Alisons in the play. Moira Stone feelingly portrays the adult Bechdel at her drafting table, grappling with how to tell this story and also observing it, cringing at some of the embarrassing moments of her youth with rueful humor.
Seventh-grader Lila Gold is a joyful and enthusiastic dynamo as the child Alison (played by Ruth Keith at some performances),
and every time her father says something hurtful to dampen her dreams, it’s like a punch in the gut. Her chipper ’70s-style songand-dance number doing a made-up commercial jingle for the family funeral home with her two brothers (Jack Barrett alternating with Dylan Kento Curtis, and Billy Hutton trading off with Oliver Copaken Yellin) is one of many highlights of the show, with boisterous choreography by Dottie Lester-White. The brothers drop out of the story entirely after childhood, because that’s not the story Bechdel is telling.
Erin Kommor is full of nervous giddiness as teenage Alison, freshly arrived at college and discovering herself as a lesbian, aided by Ayelet Firstenberg’s confidently flirtatious and easygoing Joan. Alison’s uncontainable exuberance after her first sexual experience is one of the most endearingly joyful scenes you’re likely to see. It leads into a wonderfully funny number where she sings that she’s “changing my major to Joan.”
The songs are powerful and catchy, terrifically rendered by the cast and the orchestra conducted by musical director William Liberatore.
James Lloyd Reynolds veers erratically from nearmanic joviality to distance to defensive lashing-out as Alison’s father, Bruce. It’s a powerful performance, the more so because you can see how much damage his repressed inner conflict does to his loved ones.
Michael Doppe breezily plays several young dudes in whom Bruce takes an interest. Crissy Guerrero exudes stoic resignation as long-suffering mother Helen, whose own relationship with Alison is explored in Bechdel’s 2012 follow-up graphic memoir, “Are You My Mother?”
Andrea Bechert’s scenery smartly conveys multiple locations with just a few
details. At first, the blackened stage appears bare except for a small drafting table, but when we get to their lovingly restored gothic-revival home, fancy windows drop in and a few key furnishings give us a strong sense of the ornate decor on which Alison’s father so lovingly dotes. Director Kelley also makes haunting use of a single projected image from Bechdel’s graphic novel, of somber Bruce playing with young Alison.
Like the book, the musical spills most of its biggest spoilers early on, as the emphasis is not on plot twists so much as processing and coming to terms with what happened. Knowing what’s coming makes some of the later scenes of blossoming daughter and spiraling father gut-wrenching. As Alison reflects in one of the show’s most tear-inducing lines, “I had no idea my beginning would be your end.” By turns delightful and devastating, it’s an unforgettable and powerfully performed masterpiece.