“Don’t let this be in the past,” cartoonist Alison Bechdel beseeches her own memory as she scrambles to put down something- anything- onto into a sketchbook in the incredibly powerful Fun Home, based on the artist’s graphic novel. The trouble, of course, is that it’s all past, and it’s Alison’s job to sort the mythology of her Dad with the real, live truths that become more apparent as she nears his age at the time of his death.
Dropping truth bombs in the form of cartoon panels, the first national tour of Fun Home doesn’t dance around the central betrayal or questions, clueing in the audience early on:
“Caption: My dad and I both grew up in the same small Pennsylvania town.
And he was gay.
And I was gay.
And he killed himself.
And I … became a lesbian cartoonist.”
The 2015 Tony Award-Winning musical memoir (directed Sam Gold, with music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by Lisa Kron) is a darker, more introspective show than that blockbuster running right up the street, but equally deserving of your attention (and money). Jumping back and forth in time, the show centers on Alison in three phases of her life; as Small Alison (Alessandra Baldacchino) in her family’s pristine showplace of a house as well as part of the family’s funeral home business, Medium Alison (Abby Corrigan) as a new college coed with just as new sexual awakenings (and a healthy dose of awkwardness, to boot), and as grownup Alison (Kate Shindle) as an adult trying to make sense of the actual man her father was- and how (if at all) that changes her memories.
courtesy Margie Korshak images
Being a closeted gay man in a small, 1970s town was a different world entirely for her father (Robert Petkoff), and his Bruce is a study in contradictions: the quiet, supportive funeral home director, the occasionally playful and present Dad, and the high school English teacher with the bad habit of picking up former students for late-night trysts. Petkoff is remarkable in his ability to, through it all, remain sympathetic and accessible in his love for his daughter, whom he calls kiddo and plies with novel upon novel for future discussion. Susan Moniz as Helen, his long-suffering wife, has some of the best lines in her powerhouse song “Days and Days,” about the passage of time, and how people get buried under the minutiae and expectations: “Welcome to our house on Maple Avenue/ See how we polish and we shine/ We rearrange and realign/ Everything is balanced and serene/ Like chaos never happens if it’s never seen.”
The trio of Alisons are incredibly cast. Kate Shindle, whose career spans Broadway hits, notable activism, and a stint as 1998’s Miss America, is a wry, witty narrator- with love to spare for her younger selves. Medium Alison, played by Abby Corrigan, is honest, earnest, and so endearingly neurotic that you want to convince her that someday everything will- somehow- be okay. And as for Alessandra Baldacchino’s Small Alison, her pint-sized stature belies a large stage presence, never more evident than in the show-stopping number “Ring of Keys,” her startled ode of adoration towards a diner delivery gal.
Poignant, funny, and with a thoughtful score chock full of zingers, Fun Home is a must-see ode to childhood and memory- and the truths which are eventually, cathartically revealed once we see our heroes in the light of adulthood.
*****
Runs through November 13th, 2016
at the Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph, Chicago
www.broadwayinchicago.com
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