Responding to our assigned readings on the subject if performance art, let’s discuss this piece by Laurie Anderson:

Having the chance to watch Fun Home the musical certainly made Wednesday night, a fun night. After reading Fun Home, the novel, I just could not think of a single way to change it into a musical. It seemed impossible. After all, it is a graphic novel, which means the total number of words is seemingly too few to create an entire show with. Even though it was at the public theater and sounded like a great show to watch, my expectations were low. I expected myself to be very against the whole thing. Although there were many aspects that irked me, I was, overall, impressed.

After skimming the playbill and noticing there were going to be three people playing Alison Bechdel at different ages, I knew the play was going to have an interesting concept. Then the play started and I saw the youngest and oldest Alison on stage at the same time. I finally understood how most of the play would work. The oldest one would be there (for the most part) to narrate the thoughts and observations. This concept works. I could better understand the emotions Alison might have felt when remembering these events and the emotions felt while actually experiencing the events. All the characters worked great together to show the flaws and weaknesses in the family. Several scenes were acted out as they were drawn in the novel, which was interesting to see. The best aspect is that the play is that the feelings of the characters could be felt. Anger was anger, such as when the parents argued about Bruce not following court orders. Alison’s confusion about her sexuality made me just as confused about her. The sadness in the play even made the audience cry. The play made sense, had emotion, and is a great replica of the novel.

Despite all this, it is not the perfect play. While the novel gives off a sad and depressing vibe that just makes a reader sad, the musical gave off a very happy feeling. I finished the book sad, but left the show laughing about the funny scenes. The musical also added more details to the storyline such as learning German that only added humor. Although it is funny, it just takes away from the sadness of the story. Also, the mixture of the three different aged Alison’s on stage showed chaos and was interesting, but it was confusing at times. Then there was also the fact some details were left out, changed, or out of order. Some seemingly important parts that were left out were the camping scenes and the part where the younger brother left by himself in New York. Perhaps it was because I read the novel beforehand that I feel that the musical has these problems. If I did not read it I wonder if I would feel something is missing while watching. Actually, I probably wouldn’t have understood it if I did not read the novel.

In the end, this was nothing but a great experience. The music was great, and the actors were fantastic. Even with the annoyances, I was thoroughly entertained and would recommend this play.

Did anyone else find these little details a little annoying as well?

Last night, we went to see Fun Home at the Public Theater. I, as well as everyone else, was initially skeptical, given that the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel was turned into a musical. How could Fun Home, a novel with a somber and depressing tone possibly be turned into a jolly, cheerful musical? After watching the play, I realized that not only did the producers of the musical find the perfect balance between the two, but also created a new rendition of the story that touched all of our hearts just like Bechdel’s graphic novel.

The play opened up with a woman in the background standing by a desk, presumably writing or drawing. In the foreground, “Small Alison” starts singing onstage, asking “Daddy” to play airplane. This first scene without a doubt mirrors the first scene in the graphic novel, when Alison and Bruce played airplane. We realize that the woman in the background is Alison when she grew older. She is in the process of writing her graphic novel, the same novel for which this play is based off of. All throughout the play, older Alison remains, observing the scenes and trying to craft her novel every time she said “Caption.” In the play, we are able to see Alison when she was younger, from when she would ask her Daddy to play airplane, to when she would make advertisements for the Bechdel Fun Home with her brothers, to seeing her father sneak out, etc. We see Alison in her college years, where she has this adorable awkwardness about her when she is in the process of finding herself and when she forms a relationship with Joan, who seems absolutely perfect for Alison. We see Alison during childhood and in her adolescent/young adult years. And of course, we see Bruce, who seems to put on a good image that he has the perfect family. However, we see that behind closed doors, Bruce is actually having affairs with other men behind his wife’s back and through older Alison’s reflection. We are able to see all of the hints Bruce dropped that Alison failed to pick up on until her mom broke the news to her when she was away at college. Older Alison is remembering all of this so that she can incorporate it into her autobiography.

However, what I truly liked about the play was that Older Alison did not always play the part of the mundane narrator who did not take part of the action in the play. We see that towards the end, Older Alison is trying to figure out why her father never confessed to her that he was gay. She is still baffled by the fact that he suddenly died, or possibly killed herself. Perhaps the most powerful scene was when Older Alison was in the car with her father and she sings the song about “telephone poles and black wires.” She is waiting for her father to confess about what she already knows. We see that these questions still haunt her to this day, which, personally to me, was not as clear in the novel. The play was able to take the story from Bechdel’s graphic novel and present it in a new light. Personally, it was a different rendition from the novel, a rendition that I completely enjoyed. My only criticism was that I felt that the play was a little too positive, especially given the tone of the graphic novel. But the play, nonetheless, was amazing and could, hopefully, find its way to Broadway.