Encore Michigan

Review: “Fun Home” at the Fisher

Review December 01, 2016 David Kiley

DETROIT, Mich. – Fun Home, which is on tour and making a stop at the Fisher Theater this month, explores a universal theme – children trying to figure out their parents and parents trying to figure out their children.

In this case, the story of Fun Home centers on a couple, Bruce (Robert Petkoff) and Helen (Susan Moniz) Bechdel, and their children – Alison, Christian and John. Bruce is a high school English teacher in a small town in Pennsylvania who also operates a funeral home he inherited from his grandfather. He is a fussy, liberal, antique-collecting troubled man. And we find out early on, and this is not a spoiler, that he is gay.

As you can imagine, the energy in the house, the “Fun (eral) Home, is odd and often destructive, but not without the laughs that any family, no matter how dysfunctional, can muster through daily life. The kids are known to hide in caskets. And they like to pretend they are making a commercial for the “Fun Home,” with their skit turning into a charming and funny Jackson-5 style song and dance number with kids dancing on the casket.

Alison, who we get to see in three stages of life – as a pre-adolescent, a teenager and a 43-year old adult, is a lesbian, and discovers her true self long before she learns of her father’s true self. Indeed, the whole play is told through the lens, remembrances and diary entries of grown-up Alison, played by Kate Shindle.

The story is adapted from Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel, and the play – book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine Tesori – won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Musical.

Most of the story takes place in the Bechdel home, which is broken up into rooms in different zones of the stage. But we also go as far as a New York City apartment where Bruce has taken two of his kids even though it is an opportunity for him to go cruising, and Alison’s campus and dorm at Oberlin College. And then there is Alison’s stand-up desk where she, a cartoonist, is trying to give images to her remembrances and flashbacks.

Tesori, who also wrote “Violet,” and “Caroline or Change,” has written tunes and lyrics that are woven through the time travel of the story with uncommon fluidity and poignancy. There are multiple-part songs that intentionally never reach harmony, though you can tell at least some of the characters on stage long for it.

Mr. Petkoff is quite good as the layered and conflicted father who cares more for the silver tea service he has rescued from a barn sale or the a collection of Bicentennial spoons than his long suffering wife. Ms. Moniz is also strong as the pretending wife who is understandably nonplussed when she learns of Alison’s sexual awakening.

All the kids are strong, but none more than Abby Corrigan who plays high-school and college-aged Alison. Also making a strong turn is Karen Eilbacher as Joan, the lesbian who helps create her awakening. The character is written extremely well – the multi-racial, knowing lesbian who is charmed by Alison’s hermaphroditic nerdiness. The three Alison’s are extremely well aligned in voice, form and face.

“Fun Home” is touching throughout. The audience knows more than the characters about what is being kept secret, and what will happen at the end of the story. There are no surprises. We are handed the turns of this family’s passage by grown-up Alison, so the exercise for the audience is watching the discovery unfold in retrospect.

A lot has happened for LGBTQ people in the last eight years. And as this community, and anyone who identifies with and supports it, faces a whole new set of challenges, questions and uncertainties, “Fun Home” is a trip home for many of us that many would rather not take. But you won’t be sorry you did.

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