‘Fun Home’ feels rightly unsettling
An intimate setting for an emotional ride
Could a musical focusing on a lesbian cartoonist whose closeted father kills himself fly on Broadway?
For anyone who saw Fun Home at the Public Theater last season, that’s a rhetorical question. From the start, this adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s autobiographical graphic novel had all the earmarks of a contemporary hit: topical subject matter, a wittily irreverent but emotionally compelling book and score ( by composer Jeanine Tesori and lyricist/ librettist Lisa Kron) and characters who are idiosyncratic and instantly accessible. On Broadway, where Fun
Home opened Sunday, the show feels even more powerful, and more unsettling. This may owe partly to Circle’s in-the-round structure, which provides more angles and a greater intimacy.
Director Sam Gold and his marvelous cast also have had more time to consider the complex challenges facing their characters, examined in scenes that shift back and forth in time. There’s a key new player, Emily Skeggs, cast as Middle Alison — one of three representatives of Bechdel, at different stages of her life. Playing Alison as she begins college and discovers her sexuality, Skeggs is at once a winsome presence and convincingly awkward. Her sense of wonder is infectious, and her struggles to win over her father are heartbreaking.
Much the same could be said for Sydney Lucas, 11, whose portrayal of Small Alison at the Public made her the youngest recipient of the Obie Award
The riveting Beth Malone returns as Alison in her 40s, an artist coming to terms with her troubled childhood and her father’s ultimately tragic path.
As played by Michael Cerveris — in what may be a career performance — Alison’s dad, Bruce, is a cauldron of resentment and repressed desires.
Fun Home ends on a note of transcendence as Alison recalls that “every so often” she “soared above” her circumstances. This show does, as well.