Alison Bechdel
Fun Home on Broadway: A Comparison
Fun Home has become something of a sensation on Broadway since its debut at Circle in the Square Theater on April 19th, 2015. Much of the original cast followed Fun Home from its Off Broadway days until its now hugely successful and innovative run that has garnered five Tony Awards. Fun Home made history because the composer, Jeanine Tesori, and the playwright Lisa Kron, became the first all-female team to win for best score.
Within Fun Home, you see a different point of view of the novel. Inevitably, it can come off as more light-hearted because music is involved, but it is still deeply moving. There are certain aspects from the graphic novel that are almost more endearing and more clearly portrayed in the musical than can be done on page.
One prominent example if the scene where Alison and her father are alone at the diner, and in walks what Older Alison from the musical says is an "old-school butch." This scene, however poignant, is made even more significant in its portrayal by the actress Sydney Lucas as she sings "Ring of Keys". It is an awe-inspiring moment of everything suddeny "clicking" for Alison. While Tesori did find that adapting some of the particularly more controversial aspects of the novel, such as the aforementioned diner scene, were tricky, the overall product has clearly been a hit.
The entire cast has gotten the unique opportunity to not only have Alison's novel as a resource, but Alison herself has been deeply involved in the process. She visits regularly, and even invited the cast out to the real Fun Home in Pennsylvania where she grew up.
The musical is used as a frame device from Older Alison's perspective as she is writing the graphic novel in her studio. We see Alison revisit her childhood and her college years through Little Alison and Middle Alison. All three actresses who were in the original cast were nominated for Tony Awards. While neither Judy Kuhn, Older Alison; Emily Skeggs, Middle Alison; nor Sydney Lucas, Young Alison; won the award, it was still a landmark nomination. Fun Home won Best Musical, and Alison Bechdel was there to accept the award with the cast.
In the video below, Sydney Lucas portrays the aforementioned scene in the book about seeing the woman in the diner with her father. While in the musical her father's reaction is less dramatic, they poignancy of this revelation for Alison is not lost in the music, per say. The acting and the lyrics say equally as much, but this draws a perfect parallel that is found between the equal importance of the drawings and the words themselves in the novel.
In the video below, Emily Skeggs who plays Middle Alison, is recounting her first experience with Joan, her soon-to-be girlfriend. While in the novel Joan acts nearly as a catalyst to Alison's revolution, both within her sexuality and in her examination of children's literature, Joan takes a back seat in the muscial. Her support and influence is omnipresent, particularly in the evolution of Alison's confidence within herself, but she takes more of a backseat, and we hear Middle Alison's changes occur via song and monologue. In "Changing My Major to Joan", there is a paraphrase of the importance that Joan had. While the song itself is equally as amusing and informative of just how smitten Alison was with her first lesbian encounter, there is more of a whimsical air. Of course song is multi-faceted and therefore more able to convey complex emotions in a shorter amount of time, but the impact of Joan is just as clear in the song as it is in the novel. While the sexualization of the relationship in the musical between the two is dialed down from the upfront, and sometimes controversial, depiction of the relationship in the novel, there is still a clear message given, particularly in the lyrics and their descriptions. In essence, the same picture is being painted, but we must see it in our heads as opposed to the page.
Below, Alison and her brothers John and Christian, are partaking in one of their favorite activities: playing in the funeral home. While before and after this song we are shown how the children consistently helped in the arduous upkeep of the funeral home, we are presented with a plethora of themes within "Come to the Fun Home". The tune and tempo of the song is a reflection of the time period in which they grew up, something that is clearly evident in almost every page of the graphic novel, but is not as much, aside from costumes and a few songs, in the musical. This is effective in "Come to the Fun Home", because there is an extablishment of rapport and camaraderie between the siblings, as well as the lighthearted contrast that can be hard to find in a musical that deals with such heavy themes. Thus again, this is a paraphrase within a song of multiple aspects from the novel, such as the time period, their jovial nature towards death, and their contrasted innocence with what was often times unwittingly occurring around them. While there is a dark humor aspect of things in this scene, the musical truly grasps the nature of the tragicomic aspect that is headily interspered in the novel, here.
While there was no video of Michael Ceveris and Sydney Lucas performing this piece, "Flying Away", both in the beginning and the end of the musical, ties together one of the most brilliant aspects of the novel. The constant allusion between Alison and Bruce, and Icarus and Daedelus is unavoidable. The novel both begins and ends with this anachronism that doubles as a parable for those who fly just a little too close to the sun. In the musical, we are introduced and left with the image of Alison soaring above her father as they play airplane in the living room. This is a direct parallel to the novel, seeing as this is how the novel begins and ends as well. Emotionally, the musical ties together the entire image slightly neater than the novel. This is consistent throughout the musical as many questions we are presented with in the novel are presented as fact in the musical, but both, no matter how different or alike, tell a beautiful story.
