By the time a college-aged Alison came out to her mother, Helen had little patience for matters of homosexuality, given its corrosive effect on her marriage. Those private longings didn't stay very private, though, and slowly ate away at both Bruce and Helen. Bruce (played unevenly by Todd Yard), struggled to keep his private longings at bay while still being a father to Alison and her two brothers, and a husband to his wife, Helen (a remarkable Laura Marie Duncan).
Occurring mostly in Alison's memory, we glimpse moments of her life as a child (Small Alison is played by an incredible Marissa Simeqi) and as a teenage student at Oberlin (Ellie van Amerongen, potent as Medium Alison) who first learns of her father's secret while beginning to explore her own sexuality with girlfriend Joan (Desiré Graham).īechdel grew up in the '60s and '70s, and when she turned 20 in 1980, her father, Bruce, killed himself by jumping in front of a truck. The story begins with Alison (a capable but shrill-voiced Amy Jo Jackson), a 43-year-old woman looking for answers and sifting through her memories, desperate to distill some truth from a life that has been anything but straightforward. If you think you've already experienced Fun Home, think again.Īlthough it's only been a year since the Tony Award-winning musical was last seen in Boston, on its national tour, that doesn't come close to matching the devastating power wielded by director Paul Daigneault's deeply felt production, now running at SpeakEasy Stage.īased on Alison Bechdel's biographical graphic novel of the same name, Fun Home is a seemingly unconventional musical about a lesbian cartoonist and her secretly gay dad. Marissa Simeqi, Amy Jo Jackson, and Ellie van Amerongen as the three Alisons of Fun Home, directed by Paul Daigneault, at SpeakEasy Stage Company.
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