PIP Theatre has brought Fun Home, the musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s award winning graphic novel, to Brisbane for the first time. Directed by Sherryl-Lee Secomb, this moving production holds all the complex emotion and intellectual distance of Bechdel’s memoir, performed in an intimate setting.
Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel memoir Fun Home was published in 2006, her first full-length work after decades of drawing the iconic Dykes to Watch Out For comics. Deeply personal and impressively nuanced, Fun Home reflects on Alison’s childhood in rural Pennsylvania in the family business: the Bechdel family funeral home, which the family dubbed the ‘fun home’. The Victorian house, meticulously restored and kept in pristine condition by her intellectual, emotionally volatile father Bruce and her long-suffering mother Helen, becomes a metaphor for the family itself.
Alison goes away to college at Oberlin and realises that she is a lesbian; her coming out becomes even more complicated when her mother confesses that her father has been having affairs with men for years, and had even been arrested for supplying an underage boy with beer. Just months after she comes out to her parents, and as Alison begins to adjust to a new way of seeing her father, he steps in front of an oncoming truck and dies.
With music byJeanine Tesori and book and lyricsby Lisa Kron, the musical adaptation of Fun Home debuted Off-Broadway in 2013 and, after an extended run, opened on Broadway in 2015. The musical was nominated for twelve Tony Awards, winning five (Best Musical, Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Direction, and Best Leading Actress in a Musical) and was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Three versions of Alison appear in the musical: her child self, growing up in the Fun Home with her parents and her two brothers; her college self, grappling with her identity and beginning to take her comics more seriously; and her adult self, looking back on her past to understand her present. Through these vignette memories, adult Alison unwinds the grief and guilt of her father’s death, their complicated relationship, and her many unanswered questions. The musical, like the graphic novel, is not told in a linear fashion but the separation of the three Alisons, as well as the structure of the show, ensured clarity.
The music was performed live, with the band partly visible behind a sheer backdrop, conducted by Musical DirectorBenjamin Richards. Set, prop, and costume design by Breanna Gear immersed the audience in Alison’s memories as she sifted through them; the audience was seated in the round, and the floorboards of the Fun Home extended out into black and white pen lines, a drawing brought to life. Alison is depicted drawing the graphic novel throughout the musical, trying to recall the details from memory, and wondering if these imperfect and incomplete rememberings are all she has left of her father.
All three ‘Alisons’ were outstanding: Theo Hunt as “Young Alison”, cheerfully naïve but also afraid of her father at times; Micheal Enright as the awkward but increasing self-assured “College Alison”; and Aurelie Roque as the adult “Alison Bechdel”, who is looking back on her former selves and is an observer, rather than an active participant, for much of the play’s action. The transition from College Alison to adult Alison within the play was staged simply and beautifully.
Adam Bartlett was magnetic as Bruce, playing Alison’s father as both standoffish and vulnerable. Fun Home humanises Bruce and presents him with a great deal of nuance, empathising without excusing or forgiving his behaviour, and Bartlett carries this complexity well.
Deidre Grace gave an equally moving performance as Bruce’s stoic, steadfast wife Helen, and her song Days and Days was a highlight. Fraser Goodreid and Jaden Armitage played Alison’s younger brothers, John and Christian, with plenty of cheeky, boisterous energy. Emma Erdis was warm and funny as Alison’s first girlfriend, Joan, and Daniel Kirkby played a succession of Bruce’s love interests.
Choreography by Grace Clarke, who was also the Assistant Director, was excellent – Come to the Fun Home injected some levity, and the costuming and choreography of Raincoat of Love placed Alison’s childhood firmly in the 1970s. Lighting designed and operated by Liam Gilliland and sound designed by Jacob Cash and operated by Madelyne Leitecontributed to the sense of emotion and atmosphere, and clearly marked changes in setting.
Fun Home is a work filled with parallels and metaphors, a poignant portrait of one family’s dysfunction that reflects many wider fears and truths about how we are shaped by the people who raise us. PIP Theatre’s production is independent theatre at its best, with all the energy and talent of a mainstage musical performed in a more intimate setting, where the audience can be fully immersed in the world of the characters.
Fun Home will be performed at PIP Theatre, Milton, from 29 August – 14 September 2024
For ticketing and further information, visit the PIP Theatre website
