Margin Notes: Fun Home (a revisit)

Sydney Lucas and Michael Cerveris as Small Alison and Bruce.
Photo by Joan Marcus.

Fun Home

Seen on: Wednesday, 4/29/15.
My grade: A. Profoundly moving, excellent ensemble work.

Plot and Background

Based on cartoonist Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir, Fun Home follows a grown Alison as she backtracks through her memories, writing her memoir, trying to sort through the contradictory memories and emotions attached to her closeted and emotionally abusive father. She struggles with the fact that a few months after she came out as gay in college, her father was hit by a truck - did he kill himself because of her? Because of him? Was it an accident? Alison's memories are aided by Small Alison, the child who knew she was different but not what it meant, and by Middle Alison, the college student, exploding into her sexuality like an epiphany. This show was developed at the Ojai Playwrights Conference, the Sundance Theatre Lab, and The Public Theater's Public Lab, before its full production at The Public in 2013-2014. It was nominated for numerous awards, and was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. That production has transferred to Broadway with its cast mostly intact (Emily Skeggs has taken over for Middle Alison, and the two brothers were also recast).

What I Knew Beforehand

I've broken my self-imposed rule to not review shows I've already seen, as I like the idea of doing this more as a first impressions from first exposure (which is why I haven't reviewed, say, Hand to God or The Audience). But I never reviewed Fun Home when I saw it at The Public and I should have, and the staging and set are different enough, that I'm allowing myself to defy myself. So what did I know beforehand? I saw the show at The Public (Emily Skeggs had already taken over for Socha by that time), I've listened to the cast album numerous times, and I've read Alison Bechdel's book on which it is based.

Thoughts:

Play: What that does mean is that I'm going to focus the majority of my thoughts on cast and design. That being said, I think this is a remarkable show based on a remarkable book (that you should read. have you read it? go read it). The fluidity of it, narratively non-linear and yet absolutely emotionally so, following grown Alison through her memories of childhood, of coming out, of trying, over and over, to understand her father and why he did what he did. The fact that the lyrics are written by a playwright and not a lyricist lend them a more naturalized rhythm, as of dialogue elevated, even if it does result in some predictable or forced rhymes. And perhaps the structure could be stronger, I'm not sure (the elimination of "Al for Short" was a good cut, for the record). But it still feels like an important show, it's still so moving, and so unusual to see such a female-dominated story, to see a young girl sing a love song to a delivery woman. I'm so grateful this show got a Broadway transfer.

My Only Slightly Uninformed Opinion on Tony Noms

Steven Boyer in Hand to God. Photo by Joan Marcus.

I should start with the caveat that I still haven't seen the following shows: The King and I, An American in Paris, Finding Neverland, Fish in the Dark, or Holler if Ya Hear Me (that last one's a lost cause, unfortunately, but I plan to catch the rest in the next month). I've seen the NTLive screening of Skylight, but not the current Broadway run yet.

That being said, here are my general thoughts on nominations and - I don't like the word snubs any more than you do - non-nominations. For a full list of nominees, click here.

Plays

While I'm not looking to kick out any of the four nominees for Best Play (Curious Incident ..., Disgraced, Hand to God, and Wolf Hall), I would have liked to see both Constellations and The River remembered, as I found them both such striking pieces of theater, moving and intimate and unusual. As for Best Revival of a Play, I don't have particularly strong opinions about what was included versus what was excluded - it's perhaps a sign that none of the Broadway play revivals this season really grabbed me (whereas the new plays were for the most part pretty exciting). Also, side note - how cool is it that a play got nominated for Best Choreography? And well-deserved - the staging of Curious Incident is something else.

Margin Notes: Airline Highway

Julie White and Scott Jaeck as Tanya and Wayne.
Photo by Joan Marcus.

Airline Highway

Seen on: Thursday, 4/9/15.
My grade: B+. While not necessarily my kind of show, it was moving and very well acted.

Plot and Background

It's the very near future (May 2015, to be precise) at the gone-to-seed Hummingbird Motel, just off the Airline Highway in New Orleans, and the motel's inhabitants are throwing a "living funeral" for the not-quite-departed Miss Ruby. Most of the attendees are those who will never leave, but when Bait Boy, gone three years to a life of respectability, returns with his stepdaughter in tow, tempers fly. This play is Pulitzer Prize finalist Lisa D'Amour's Broadway debut, and has transferred to New York from its recent run at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

What I Knew Beforehand

Literally nothing but the title.

Thoughts:

Play: I don't know if everyone will like this show. There's not a whole lot of plot to it - it's more a collage, a collection of portraits, a landscape even, than a story. I've been seeing people compare it to Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead or The Hot L Baltimore, and it certainly has elements in kind with those - an ensemble of semi-broken individuals, clinging together while also desperately trying to break apart, break free into something else. This is post-Katrina New Orleans, and no one's very optimistic about their prospects. Musically it also evokes Wilson's work, in its overlapping dialogue and conversations - no one politely takes his turn here, and there are often two or more conversations happening at one time. So I don't know if everyone will like this show. But if theater is meant to elicit honest and spontaneous emotion from its audience, this show worked for me. I found myself suddenly crying in Act Two, and I didn't stop until the curtain call. Perhaps it was just Miss Ruby's insistence, when looking at her despairing children in the lot of a motel that's being threatened by a newly-opened Costco across the way, that despite what they think they "are not disposable." An important thing to remember.

Margin Notes: The Visit

Chita Rivera as Claire. Photo by Thom Kaine.

The Visit

Seen on: Saturday, 3/28/15.
My grade: B+. A fine production of a show that just wasn't for me.

Plot and Background

Claire Zachannasian, a widow several times over and now one of the wealthiest women in the world, returns to her former hometown, now a crumbling ruin of poverty and despair, and still clinging desperately to the hope that she will save it. However, her offered salvation comes with a price - she will pay the town a billion dollars - if they kill Anton, the man who jilted her when she was a teenager. It's been a long road to Broadway for this musical, adapted from Friedrich Durrenmatt's 1956 play; originally produced in 2001 in Chicago (still starring Chita - she's been with it the whole time), then at Virginia's Signature in 2008, then in the Williamstown festival last year, it now comes to Broadway condensed to one act.

What I Knew Beforehand

If memory serves, I performed in a scene from the original straight play when I was in college 300 years ago. And of course, I know plenty of other work by the authors Kander & Ebb, and McNally.

Thoughts:

Play: While the show itself doesn't necessarily speak to me, score or script, and the staging is often deliberately distancing (echoes of Brecht whenever the townspeople come into play), this really was a very well done production. The whole thing was eerie, vaguely surreal. From Claire's entrance, a stack of suitcases rolled in on top of a black coffin (she came prepared!), through the ghosting appearances of Young Anton and Young Claire, flitting throughout the action, to the bizarre "Yellow Shoes" number, and ending in Claire's and Anton's exit, the whole thing could feel like a dream, but a very deliberate one. One got the sense that none of the other people of the town were quite real, outside of Claire and Anton.

Margin Notes: Something Rotten!

Brad Oscar and Brian d'Arcy James as Nostradamus and
Nick Bottom. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Something Rotten!

Seen on: Saturday, 3/28/15.
My grade: C. While not a terrible show, it was largely disappointing.

Plot and Background

Nick Bottom and his brother Nigel are struggling playwrights in Renaissance England - and Nick has nothing but resentment for Shakespeare, a rock star blowhard who seems to steal other people's writing more often than he creates his own. Desperate to have a hit (and to not lose his last cent and patron), Nick finds a soothsayer to tell him what show to write - and thus the first musical was born. However, this seer's sight is a little ... cloudy. Throw in some Puritans, a cross-dressing wife, and a healthy dose of self-awareness. World premiere.

What I Knew Beforehand

Something about Shakespeare as a rock star, and a very self-aware musical about writing a musical. And that a whole mess of actors I like are in it.

Thoughts:

Play: I should open by saying that I saw the show in its first week of previews, and it is my understanding that the show has had revisions and improvements since then. After seeing all the cute viral marketing of Brian d'Arcy James and Christian Borle clowning around, I guess I expected a slightly different show than I got (for one, CB's not in it that much at all). While the show has a good heart and fun intentions, it just wasn't clever enough. Many of the nods to contemporary references, courtesy of Nostradamus, were definitely entertaining, and the portrayal of Shakespeare as a hack high on his own hype was a good touch, but the main characters and their story ultimately just weren't as compelling as the fun fringier aspects (and every time Brother Jeremiah made another "accidental" gay innuendo, I cringed. It's not funny, it's just dumb). Fun songs included the show-stopper "A Musical," the first act finale, "Bottom's Gonna Be on Top," and Shakespeare's second act number, "Hard to Be the Bard."