Wow. Christmas has come early this year and it comes via The Black Box Theatre’s current production of Fun Home with music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by Lisa Kron.
Nominated for twelve Tony Awards and winner of five, including for Best Musical, Fun Home is a musical theatre adaptation of Alison Bechdel's 2006 graphic memoir of the same name. The story concerns Bechdel's discovery of her own lesbian sexuality, her relationship with her closeted gay father, and her attempts to unlock the mysteries surrounding his life. It is told from the perspective of Bechdel at three seminal ages of her development in a series of non-linear vignettes connected by narration provided by the adult Alison character.
Brought to the BBT’s stage and directed by Bradley Robert Jensen, who came upon it around the time of its Broadway debut in 2015, this complicated story is profoundly visceral as the Alison character comes to terms with her self discovery of her sexuality while at college and coming out to her parents only to to learn that her father is also gay and has been involved in numerous gay liaisons throughout his marriage to her mother, some of them with underage boys. Four months after coming out to her parents Alison’s father is killed when stepping into traffic which Alison interprets as suicide. There is an underlying sense of guilt that her revelation to her parents was the impetus to her father’s death.
The character of Alison’s father, powerfully played by Tristan Tapscott, is a driven, often cruel man. He is obsessive in restoring the old home in which his family lives, teaches English at the local high school and also runs the family’s funeral home business which could be interpreted as misguided attempt to reign in his sexual predilection. His closing number just before his demise is electrifying
The tortured adult Alison is portrayed thoughtfully and subtlety by Sidney Richardson, Tatum Kilburg plays the angst ridden “medium” Alison and “small” Alison is Lucy Emerle who handles this complicated story on par with her adult cast mates.
Alison’s mother, Helen, seems trapped in her marriage in an era when most women would not be able to survive with three children on her own. She is aware of her husband’s betrayals and struggles desperately to cope while raising Alison and her two brothers. Played by Kathryn Jecklin she delivers a potent number when she reveals the family’s dirty little secret.
This production is intimate, touching, poignant and – at times – uncomfortable and yet this skillfully nuanced script actually has genuine moments of laughter that lift us out of the miasma of sorrow for this highly dysfunctional clan.
Jensen is to be congratulated for bringing this to the Quad Cities and for the delicate and tender handling of the subject.
Fun Home continues at The Black Box Theatre, 1623 5th Avenue in Moline, June 6, 7, 12, 13, and14 at 7:30 p.m. and June 8 at 2:00 p.m.
I’m Chris Hicks…break a leg.