Hello, play-goers! I’m back sooner than usual to provide a timely review of “Fun Home” at Studio Theatre in DC—catch it before it closes August 27! I’ve also got previews of three upcoming productions I recommend in DC. Let’s dive in!
There’s a moment towards the end of “Fun Home” that takes my breath away. Alison, a 40-something self-proclaimed “lesbian cartoonist,” is trying to untangle a few main themes from her life: her own coming out as a lesbian, her relationship with her father, and his gayness and suicide. As she’s trying to draw her graphic memoir, she conjures two younger versions of herself (one a kid, one in college) to play out scenes from her life alongside her mother, father, siblings, and first lover. She is present throughout, narrating and commenting on the action.
The moment that I love comes when the college-age Alison is visiting home and her Dad asks her to go for a drive. I love three things about this moment. First, instead of the actress portraying college-age Alison getting into the car, the 40-something Alison gets in. It’s as if the remembering she’s been trying up to this point is no longer enough and she has to enter the memory with her whole body. I love this because it illustrates the magic of theater! Only in an embodied, in-person art form like theater could you show something so profound.
They drive and struggle to talk: she has recently come out as lesbian and found out that he’s also gay, but they just can’t figure out how to talk about it. The second thing I love here is the song they sing—it perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being on a car ride and trying to say something important:
Say something Talk to him Say something Anything At the light, At the light, At the light, At the light At the light, At the light, At the light, At the light Like you could say: "So how does it feel to know that you and I are both--"
Have you ever tried to have a hard conversation while driving? It’s ideal—you don’t have to make eye contact, and you have a captive audience for as long as the drive takes. (I’ve heard of lots of people coming out on drives.) But it’s also hard to psych yourself up for it, as Alison illustrates here: she’s willing herself to speak when they get to the stoplight. I love songs that go so deep into a character’s mind in a very specific situation; Sondheim does this, and so does Jeanine Tesori and her collaborators (in this case, lyricist and book writer Lisa Kron). Tesori’s music throughout the play is beautiful!
Third, I love how this moment illustrates the power of a “memory play,” or a work in which all the action is portrayed as the memories of a central character, sometimes narrated by that character. Telling a story in this way adds another dimension to the drama: we’re witnessing not just the main action taking place, but also how that action has been refracted through a character’s later experiences and memory. “Fun Home” is an extraordinary example of this: Alison is explicitly trying to bring forth her memories to draw them. When she sings “say something / anything,” it’s both the college-aged Alison trying to get herself to speak and adult Alison, full of regret, willing her younger self to connect with her father before she loses him. The layers! It is such a powerful moment. I wept.
I’ve seen two other memory plays recently. Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive” tells the story of a woman and her complicated relationship with her uncle, who sexually abused her. The play premiered in 1997 with Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse in the lead roles; it was revived last year with the same actors in the same roles. That casting would only work in a memory play; in the new version, they are simply remembering the action from an even older age. The production was fantastic—you could her a pin drop from start to finish.
Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along” was not originally presented as a memory play, but the new revival frames the action as inside the memories of one of the three lead characters. The story is told in reverse chronological order, and this new production portrayed it as the character trying to figure out what went wrong with his friendships with the other two leads. This was a brilliant move and brought the show into a focus I’ve heard was lacking in earlier productions. I saw it off Broadway last year—absolutely incredible! (It’s coming to Broadway Sept. 19 with the same cast, featuring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez. Don’t miss it!)
The key difference between “Fun Home” and these other plays? Fun Home uses three actors to portray Alison at different ages, whereas the others use the same actors for the characters at all different ages. “Fun Home” is also a bit more explicitly about remembering, as Alison works on her graphic novel memoir, whereas the other two use the memory play as a general framework.
“Fun Home” is playing at Studio Theatre in DC through August 27. The performances were across-the-board stellar, including from some very cute and talented kids. The direction, lighting design, and set design were simple, straightforward, effective and powerful. I highly recommend it!
DC Previews
Fela! at Olney Theatre Center (co-produced with Round House Theatre)
Felt Kuti was a Nigerian musician and activist. If you’ve never heard his music, it is fabulous—funky and extremebly danceable. This biomusical tells his story through his music. I saw a filmed version of a London production of it and loved it: the Afro-beats are so groovy, and because his music was political, it works to tell his story as an activist. Both of the theaters co-presenting this have been doing stellar work lately, so I’m betting it will be good. Playing July 7 - August 13
The Play That Goes Wrong at the Kennedy Center
If you’re up for a zany, laugh-a-minute, slapstick, physical comedy, you’ll want to get tickets for this! The show imagines an amateur theater troupe is trying to put on a play similar to Agatha Christie’s “The Mouse Trap” (which has been playing in London since 1952!) but they just can’t get it right. I’ve heard raves about this over the years—it played on Broadway for awhile, toured a few years ago, is playing off-Broadway now, and we’re lucky to have it coming here to DC this month. This same troupe brought us “Peter Pan Goes Wrong,” which I thoroughly enjoyed on Broadway in May (review here). Playing July 18 - August 13.
Moulin Rouge at Kennedy Center
I admit: this one is hard for me to recommend. A story told entirely through pieces of pop songs? Suspicious! How on earth could those snippets add up to a meaningful story arc and musical cohesion? I’ve had many chances to see it in New York and have avoided it. But multiple people have recommended it to me, and I’ll admit: I am curious. This falls squarely in my “I’ll see it on tour” category: shows that I’m interested in, but not enough to use a precious NYC theater slot. So consider this a half-way recommendation: get some drinks before hand, enjoy the pizzaz, and have fun trying to catch every pop song that gets thrown at you! Playing August 2 - September 24.
That’s all for now! Enjoy the summer heat and I’ll see you at the theater!