Cultural Weekly: The audience cheered enthusiastically at the musical number where the three children, Alison and her younger brothers John and Christian, dance on a coffin at their family’s funeral parlor, that they nicknamed “fun home.” I found especially funny and moving the scene where a teenage Alison (Abby Corrigan), away from home at college, suddenly realizes she is gay, and falls into bed with her first lover Joan (Karen Eilbacher), after they both confess to having had crushes on their first-grade teachers.
3 comments:
What an interesting article. Admitting, I have not done much research into the musical Fun Home and frankly didn't know that much about the plot before reading this article, but after I find it really interesting that the musical has such a cool backstory to it. I think it is pretty cool how this musical came out of a comic. Today, comic artists don't really see a lot of recognition for their work but to take a story from the comic strip to the big stage is unheard of and neat! The articles details about the story behind the comic artist sheds a lot of light on the purpose behind the musical and what the play meant for the illustrator. I think it is beautiful how the author wrote these stories for her parents and their healing. I like how the article ties the relevance of this story back to today.
I definitely saw Fun Home in New York, cried, then promptly bought and read the graphic novel and fell in love with Alison Bechdel’s storytelling and artistic style. I thought that the musical was an incredibly clever combination of charming comedy and devastating tragedy. The “Changing my Major” scene made me tear up, because the realization and subsequent actions were both hilarious and incredibly heartfelt and sweet. Her story is obviously helped by her vastly interesting and complex life and family. Even though the great white way is often associated with gay flamboyance and lavish aesthetics, lesbian/ butch stories aren’t very often portrayed in mainstream theater in any meaningful or loving way. I think it was a huge step for Broadway for Fun Home to win the award for Best Musical, because it showed that people do care and relate to these stories which are too often seen as being “niche” or “unfamiliar”. Especially in the face of our current governmental situation, I think it is more important now than ever to be humanizing the experiences of our LGBT community in any way we can.
It's beautiful that this woman's comic book was so poignant and relevant to our society that it made it's way to Broadway. Her comic book displayed sexuality and being gay in a relatable and realistic way. As Sasha said in the comment above, too often is being gay displayed in theatre/art/society in an overly flamboyant and lavish way. Fun Home does an amazing job of displaying the experience of a lesbian woman in a way that does not oversexualize or belittle her sexuality. I hope to see Fun Home in New York soon, and I'm really excited to see this beautiful musical. Again, I'm extremely impressed that the story within a comic book made it's way to Broadway and that even more people can experience the story. The themes within Fun Home are even more relevant today, and this article cohesively describes Fun Home's importance in our society now.
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