FUN HOME. PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS.
CENTER S TAG E
B R O A D WAY ’ S SUMMER SEASON
By Jere Keys
THIS SEASON THE PLACE TO BE IS BROADWAY. THEY HAVE EVERYTHING: NEIL PATRICK HARRIS’S HUSBAND AS A STRAIGHT GENTILE MARRYING THE JEWISH DAUGHTER OF TYNE DALY, CHILDREN IN POLYESTER DANCING ON A COFFIN, TWO ELIZABETHAN BOTTOMS, A RUSSIAN LOVE PENTAGON, AND A HOMOHOMILY. “WHAT’S A HOMOHOMILY?” IT’S THAT THING WHERE YOU TAKE AN ACTOR FAMOUS FOR PLAYING A SCIENTIST AND CAST HIM AS GOD IN A ONE-GAY SHOW ABOUT THE BIBLE.
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There are a lot of reasons for LGBT audiences to be excited for this year’s Broadway line-up, but perhaps the most groundbreaking innovation from the theatre scene is a first on Broadway: a musical starring a lesbian protagonist. FUN HOME is a musical adapted from the graphic novel of the same name by Alison Bechdel, the cartoonist behind Dykes to Watch Out For. The autobiographical story explores the complicated relationship between Alison (Beth Malone) and her father Bruce (Michael Cerveris), a closeted gay man who sometimes engaged in inappropriate relationships with underage boys. With the character Alison depicted at three ages (Young Alison is played by Sydney Lucas, Middle Alison is played by Emily Skeggs), the show weaves between memories of her various life stages: the child in and around the family’s home, the college freshman just coming out of the closet, and
the middle-age artist struggling to make sense of her history and her father’s role in her life and his eventual suicide. For such heavy material, the show still retains the wry and clever humor for which Bechdel is so well known. In an early scene, Young Alison and her brothers John (Zell Steele Morrow) and Christian (Oscar Williams) make a commercial for the family business (a funeral home or “the fun home”), dancing in and around an open casket. In another scene that is equally poignant and hilarious, Young Alison spots an “old school butch” and launches into essentially a love song that hits its most memorable and soaring note on the detail of “her keys—her ring of keys!” Most recently workshopped at the Public Theatre off-Broadway, the show has been reimagined for an arena-style layout, which brings even greater emotional intimacy to the story.