Late “Fun Home” review!

For the first time in my 18 years of life, I attended an off broadway play. Shameful, I know, but you always remember your first and I definitely will for this one.

‘Fun Home’, a new musical directed by Sam Gold and composed by four-time Tony Award-nominated composer Jeanine Tesori, was a triple threat. It weaved the genres of tragedy, comedy, and musical into a successful source of entertainment but also great insight on social and familial problems.

The opening scene of ‘Fun Home’ was a powerful one as it gloriously displayed the Bechdel’s hectic and distressed home with the meticulous Bruce Bechdel, played by Michael Cerveris, at the forefront. Mr. Cerveris played the character of Bruce with great ferocity. Even through the stability of home improvement and funeral work, Bruce’s life was uncomfortable and unfulfilling and it showed through the performance of Mr. Cerveris. Though I had imagined Bruce as a much more distant and colder character from the novel, Cerveris’ portrayal convinced me of an equally dissatisfied Bruce.

One might’ve thought that the frequent transitions between young, middle, and older Alison would’ve been confusing but I felt that these added to the story and its themes. It showed how Alison’s father, regardless of how neglectful or unrelatable he was to her, shaped her own life, every step of the way. Sydney Lucas, playing young Alison, was simply vivacious and stunning in her performances. Her scenes were the most compelling and invigorating. Alexandra Socha also played college Alison in a great and unique way. From the book, I understood that college Alison was an awkward character but when Ms. Socha portrayed her on stage, it was awkward in an awesome and empathetic way.  The rotating set was surprise to me and at the beginning, I was afraid that I would be distracted by the other sets on the stage. However, each scene utilized the setting very well. From the hilarious commercial filming scene in the funeral home to the tense scenes in the study, every performance brought its best so it was easy to disregard the extra sets in the foreground.

I do believe, of course, the tragicomic is a lot more in depth but the play provides a good support and complement. The musical pieces flow extremely well with the scenes and don’t seem to come of nowhere. The pieces often stole lines from the tragicomic and made them catchy and relatable. The story in the play was obviously cut down from the tragicomic but the weirdest thing was that whereas the play actually made me laugh at times, the book did not at all. Personally, I thought the book offered too much information in one frame but the play offered just the right amount to keep me interested. They kept the powerful scenes of the book (although I do wish they included more self revelation scenes of Alison’s sexuality during the college years) and brought them to life.

Overall, for my first off Broadway play, I’m glad that ‘Fun Home’ was the one.

I saw this on may way home from school, and I just had to snap a picture. I’m not really sure what’s going on here, but this is a stretch limo that seems to have had some muscle added on. I’m not sure why anyone would have done this, but it looks really cool. I guess the ladder on top (which might not be so visible in the picture) makes me think it might be for a practical reason, like the old Elliot Ness Untouchables truck, but why would anyone do that? Is the owner some kind of vigilante superhero? Or are they just some kind of weird macho kind of thing? Either way it looks really cool.

This picture really says it all. The elation of being the absolute best, the team that no one could stop. The pure joy of being a world champ. The truth is that we shouldn’t be surprised to see the Red Sox as World Series champs. Since day one of the Baseball season, the Red Sox have been the best overall team in baseball. They haven’t been a team of superstars, but they have been a team with superb stories.

Whether its been Koji Uehara, the 38 year old reliever who  rose from the ashes of the Red Sox bullpen to have one of the most dominant stretches a reliever ever has; or David Ortiz, coming back from a few down years and offseason surgery to lead the team in home runs, RBIs and batting average; and who can forget Game 6 hero Shane Victorino, who did everything he possibly could, including getting hit more than any other player in the league to help his team win.

All of these were just part of the biggest story of all: how a team can execute a complete turnaround from last in the AL East to by far the best team in the game, and without any of the big names that they had when they struggled. GO SOX!

(sorry its late)

While I was coming home from Times Square, I stumbled upon this in the subway. It was a tiny sculpture behind glass. There were many of its kind but for some reason, this one stood out to me. The sculpture features Lady Liberty singing into a gold microphone next to someone playing a saxophone. She even has musical notes as earrings on. This sculpture is placed here to show the history and common themes associated with NYC.  NYC is known as a major cultural capital that is the home to museums and galleries, theaters, and, of course, concert halls. There are many types of music that have originated in the Big Apple, jazz being one of them. Here, we see the saxophone, which is an icon of jazz. This sculpture was strategically played in the Times Square station. Times Square is a major tourist hub that almost always attracts newcomers to the city. People walking through the train station could also stumble upon this and see the symbolism behind this artwork—that NYC is one of the greatest cities in the world in terms of creating and preserving culture.

“Fun Home” was really great to watch! It was sad yet hysterical! The irony of these two were put perfectly together. There are moments when I was about to tear or when I was really sad but then they commented on something funny. It was so weird how my feelings could change from being sad to happy and visa versa so quickly. I did like the play better than the graphic novel. However, reading the graphic novel first was really helpful. I knew what the play was about and had an expectation, which is why I enjoyed it. If I didn’t read the graphic novel first, I would’ve probably been like, “Um…ok why is this so important.”

Reading the graphic novel then seeing the play helped me understand the pain of characters even better than before. I thought it was a great idea for three different actresses to play Allison in three different time periods of her life. The nonlinear plot was well put into a play. I was wondering how the play was going to portray the nonlinear storyline but it was done excellently. It exceeded my expectation. I really enjoyed it and was never was bored throughout the play.

It was a good idea to put in some scenes and not to put some. The scene where the three siblings were advertising about “Fun Home” was cleverly put. Usually, the atmosphere is sad and depressing whenever a topic is related to death. But advertising and singing in the coffin made it a comedy. That was really well put. I really liked how that incorporated tragedy and comedy. I’m glad I saw this play and read the graphic novel beforehand. I enjoyed it a lot. I still remember when a person looked at be funny because I told my friends I enjoyed it. That person, who was a senior, looked at me as if I was crazy. Now I understand the feeling of full meaning of understanding a theater play.

Prior to sitting down and watching the musical, I had wondered to myself, ‘How on Earth is it possible to make a tragicomic like Fun Home into a musical?’ I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised by the end of the musical. Though I did wish some parts were more accurately depicted in terms of comparing the musical with the tragicomic, I felt that it was a great musical. Being that it was my first musical, I wasn’t actually too sure what to expect from it. The only thing I had in mind was how the novel would translate when made into a musical where the novel would become heavily condensed by the time constraints of the musical.

I feel that Fun Home was a hard piece of literature to work with when trying to make it into a musical. This is because Fun Home is a graphic novel. The reader knows exactly how each specific aspect of the novel should look and feel. We are given images, which display the character’s emotions, actions, and motives. It is not really up to the reader to decipher what the author had intended for us to understand. Thus, we have no choice but to complain when things are done differently during the musical. The director of the musical has to plan out how each character would be best represented in the context of a musical, not a novel.

Thus, despite certain disparities between the novel and the musical, I found the musical to be a great success. In the musical’s context, the character Alison was THE central figure. Everyone else played a side role where they would lead to the growth and development of Alison. However, the novel emphasizes Bruce and a number of other characters in great detail. Bruce is made out to be a much worse father in the novel than in the musical, but that is understandable. I felt that in order to keep everyone focused on Alison and her coming out, it was necessary to change the characters up to a certain extent.

Overall, I found the musical to be a very good one by being able to maintain the central theme of the novel, while having its own flavor. The excellent music was also a plus.

On October 23rd, Fun Home the musical was something that we all got the chance to see at the Public theatre. Going into the performance, already having read the comic styled novel I wasn’t exactly sure how they were going to make it into a musical. The way the book read made it seem as if it could be composed into a play but to think of making into a musical quite didn’t click for me. Boy was I wrong, the moment the performance started after having taken our seats we were immediately entertained by Allison in her youth singing a song. The context of the song was in my opinion gracefully executed because it encompassed both the uncertainty and frustration Allison experienced growing up.

As the performance progressed all of the little details that were put into the musical began exposing themselves and working so well with both the production of the musical and the messages and motifs of the work. The changes in perspective were done with elegance in which they constantly changed between the three different phases of Allison’s life being her early childhood, confused teenage years, and her current self being represented throughout the musical as a outsider looking in trying to debunk the mystery of her life. I felt as if the incorporation of the flashbacks although vital to the story were also done in such a way that it not only respected the original intent of the author but also added to the production. It made the audience want to stay focused on the musical because it constantly was introducing different perspectives from different times in Allison’s life which is different from a typical story simply going in chronological order.

After watching the musical I was also defiantly introduced to the work in a different light. While reading it many of the scenes and situations took on a rather dark feeling in which although there were at times humor it wasn’t as relevant as it was in the musical. The musical took the work and transformed it into a true performance that would not only tell the story but would make sure that the audience was constantly entertained and not given a chance to think of it as being boring for even a moment. The sudden changes in lighting, the absolute stunning performances by the actors, especially the children who gave a performance nothing less than professional, along with the physical stage and music allowed the musical to mold into a true success. They made the performance fun, keeping true to the title I suppose without sacrificing the meaning behind the work. Incorporating song and dance scenes such as the one about the fun home commercial where the kids decided to dance on top and inside the coffins gave me the impression that they sincerely understood the elements that made the work so unique. The irony of every situation and the juxtaposition of the different ideals being some of the concepts which made the musical and work so different and special.

The incorporation of each element of the work and the distinct qualities of each character such as Bruce and his personality along with Allison and her uncertainty were done so with a true understanding of the novel Fun Home. Nonetheless the performance is surely one I would recommend to anyone wanting to have a good time and experiencing the story for themselves.

Recently, I paid a visit to Grand Central Terminal for the first time ever since moving to New York City from China 12 years ago. Before this visit I had always thought, “Big deal, it’s just a train station,” but I was very wrong. Grand Central is not “just” a train station, it is so much more. It is at the center of one of the grandest cities of the world; it is not simply a place, but an experience.

That morning, I bought myself a cuppa and a bagel and just people-watched for a good half hour, all the while soaking in the energy and buzz of hundreds of people moving and hurrying about. Being in the center of all this activity made me feel alone in a city of more than 8 million people. It was a truly inspiring and relaxing experience that made me fall in love with the city even more. Then, as I was just about to leave, I noticed a series of art works in light boxes all along some of the walls of the dining concourse. At closer inspection, I saw that these were papercuts placed on top of light boxes. After a quick Google search, it turned out that these artworks were part of a celebratory exhibition, called “On Paper,” to honor the centennial of the Grand Central Terminal. The exhibition features papercut works by artists Rob Ryan, Xin Song, Laura Cooperman, and Thomas Witte.

In particular, one of the works by Rob Ryan caught my eye. Entitled, “There Is Only Time,” the paper cut featured block-letter quotes as well as heartwarming scenes surrounding the central idea of time. When placed alongside each other, the papercuts read “There Is Only Time!” The four detailed panels came together to bring out the message that time is just time. It helps us to remember that we need to relax and stop thinking of time as “wrong time” or “right time,” “work time” or “play time.” We should just let go and relax so that we can stop being pressured and stressed out over such a simple thing as “time.” One of Ryan’s chief purposes of placing this art in the Grand Central Terminal was to remind people to take pleasure in life and its various moments, especially in a place where people are always mindlessly rushing about. He wanted his audience to connect with his work and realize that everything was going to be okay. Ryan’s quirky papercut artwork gave me a happy feeling when I look at the lovely and warm scenes that he depicts in the panels. One of the first thoughts that came into my mind was that I should “stop and smell the roses” more often to enjoy the beauty of life.

Looking at this piece of lovely and intricate piece of art soothed my mind and made me think about time as something that is not as intense or dramatic as we always make it out to be. It’s moments like these, when you are not rushing or worrying about losing time, that you make the most out of each moment that you have.

—Joanna Huang