Fun Home Review – Alison Bechdel’s Musical Memoir Feel All the Feelings | Musicals

TThe “fun” in the title is shorthand for “funeral,” a reference to the company that handles the business inherited by Alison Bechdel’s father. But there’s some fun, too, in this heartfelt musical adaptation of the cartoonist’s graphic memoir. First shown in the UK in 2018 and now brought to life by director Sarah Frankcom in a seamless theatrical production, it brings a light touch to an emotional story.

The graphic novel, published in 2006, describes the author’s sexual awakening—she kisses a girl and likes her—an awakening that coincides with the discovery of her father’s secret gay life. In the musical adaptation by Lisa Krohn (book and lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (music), it becomes a multi-layered reckoning with past and present, with 43-year-old Bechdel (Jodi Macnee) reflecting on herself as a student (Alice Audrey O’Hanlon) reflects on her childhood (Felicity Moore in performance).

Each has her own view of her conflicted father (Nigel Harman), who is charming, narcissistic and brutal – and who dominates her imagination. Their mother (Alex Young) remains even more unknown, having allowed herself to be captured by her mercurial husband.

In this regard, there is an exposed nervous shock caused by the long journey of day into night, where no one in the family is able to see others for what they are, and parents do their best for their children even while passing on generational pain. The central tragedy—in which Bechdel casually mentions that her father killed himself—is made all the more disturbing because it is inexplicable. The cause is inexorably elusive.

Yet this is also a show full of brightness in which Moore, as the youngest Bechdel — who joins performers Reggie Kimpson and Maurice McKinley as her siblings (all exceptionally good) — can launch into a Jackson 5-style funk song about an empty coffin, or the whole company can sing Raincoat of Love, a feel-good pop song with the positivity of a TV tune.

There’s soul in the heart-on-sleeve numbers that Harman and Young sing, but there’s also joy, sarcasm and lust. Who couldn’t love O’Hanlon singing about her first sexual encounter in Changing My Major (“Having Sex with Joan”)?

Gorgeously presented, it’s a show full of complex conflict, bizarre celebration, and hope born of awkward survival.