It may be
true that there’s no place like home, but that can sometimes be read
ironically. Such is the case with the household featured in “Fun Home,” an
off-beat musical that recently opened at MTC Maintsage in Norwalk under the
direction of Kevin Connors. Based on the best-selling graphic novel by Alison
Bechdel, with music by Jeannie Tesori and book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, this
musical, which has won multiple awards, dissects a family that is held together
by the sheer determination of its members not to face the truth. “Annie” it
ain’t but, then again, sometimes the sun comes out tomorrow to reveal who we
really are, as disturbing as that might be.
The musical
slides back and forth in time, anchored by three actors playing Alison at
various stages in her life. There’s the Small Alison (Caitlin Kops) who is precocious
and obsessed with drawing, the Middle Alison (the tremendously engaging Megan
O’Callaghan), a college student, and Alison herself (Amy Griffin), who makes
this something of a memory play as she revisits her family as they once were,
all the while adding “captions” to the scenes and, parenthetically, the graphic
novel she will eventually create.
The family
also consists of the father, Bruce (Greg Roderick) and the mother, Helen
(Raissa Katona Bennett) as well as two young brothers, Christian (Jonah
Frimmer) and John (Ari Frimmer). To say the least, this is not a happy family,
for as the opening number suggests, father, who is an English teacher, a
part-time mortician (hence the Fun Home
title – read funeral home) and a
restorer of homes (yes, there’s irony there), wants things a certain way…his way. Simmering beneath this need for
control there’s a rage that boils up on occasion, primarily directed at his
wife, Helen. Why? Well, she has the misfortune of being the wrong gender.
Okay, Dad
is in the closet, though the door is slightly ajar, a door that is flung wide
open when Middle Alison, while at college, accepts that she is a lesbian (in
scenes that profile O’Callaghan’s exceptional skill and talent as an actress).
She writes home – her own apologia pro
vita sua – and her letter leads to revelations and deadly consequences.
This may all sound like so much soap opera foam, but it’s deftly and engagingly
handled, especially since the emotions expressed in so many of the songs convey
honest angst and justified confusion. These are not cardboard characters but
“real” people trying to deal with the reality of their lives, as confused as
that reality might be.
This is an
ideal musical for MTC, given the enforced intimacy of the house, the thrust
stage and the proximity of the audience to the actors. In essence, there’s no
escaping the familial angst and anxiety portrayed on the stage, nor can you not
become absorbed in the emotional travails of the characters attempting as best
they can to figure out…well…how to live with each other and with themselves.
Though there are no chart-topping songs in the show, many of them cut to the
heart, no more so than the finale which has the three Alisons confronting each
other in “Flying Away,” which brings us back to the touching start of the show
when father and daughter shared a moment of exuberant innocence. You may not
leave MTC humming a happy tune, but you will leave with Small Alison, Middle
Alison and Alison herself imprinted on your mind for days to follow, as well
Helen’s haunting rendition of “Days and Days,” an attempt to explain and
describe to Middle Alison what it has been like to live with Bruce, to maintain
a fiction while raising a family. It cuts to the quick and captures the essence
of what Muriel Rukeyser once wrote: “What would happen if one woman told the
truth about her life? The world would split open.”
“Fun Home” runs
through May 6. For tickets or more information call 203-454-3883 or go to www.musictheatreofct.com.
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