'Fun Home' charms with complex characters, riveting score
At least one woman attending Thursday's opening of "Fun Home" left disappointed.
"I need razzle-dazzle, jazz hands," she told her companions as they made their way to their car.
If it's razzle-dazzle you're looking for, "Fun Home" - based on cartoonist Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel - is not for you.
But, if you appreciate complex characters and a challenging story, the sublimely realized 2015 Tony Award-winning chamber musical is a delight with its dense, polyphonic music and evocative, personal lyrics. And the riveting, robust score by writer/lyricist Lisa Kron and composer Jeanine Tesori overwhelms in the best possible way: delighting the ear and the intellect.
A coming-of-age/coming out/coming-to-terms story, "Fun Home" chronicles Bechdel's evolution as an artist and her use of art to better understand her closeted father and herself.
We meet Alison (Kate Shindle, whose reflective performance grounds the production) as she faces a midlife crisis. At 43, she informs us, she is the same age as her father when he died.
"My dad and I were exactly alike. My dad and I were nothing alike. My dad and I both grew up in the same small Pennsylvania town. And he was gay. And I was gay. And he killed himself. And I became a lesbian cartoonist."
Expertly helmed by Sam Gold, the nonlinear "Fun Home" consists of Alison's scattered recollections of her past. Shindle watches from the perimeter as preteen Alison (the bright, determined Alessandra Baldacchino) and college freshman Alison (Abby Corrigan, a lovely singer with a beguiling vulnerability) grapple with sexual orientation and an increasingly troubled family.
Local favorite Susan Moniz is in top form (evidenced by her powerful performance of "Days and Days") as Helen, Alison's reserved, resentful mother. Pierson Salvador and Lennon Nate Hammond are charming as younger brothers Christian and John.
Looming over them is their father, the volatile, conflicted Bruce, played by the gifted singer Robert Petkoff. His emotive, brilliantly ambivalent performance climaxes with the revelatory "Edges of the World."
A high school English teacher and part-time funeral director, Bruce is more invested in restoring old houses and clandestine conquests of young men (played by Robert Hager) than he is in his family. An endlessly compelling tyrant. Petkoff makes Bruce comprehensible, if not entirely palatable.
His relationship with Alison is especially fraught. There are moments when they almost connect - evidenced by Shindle's exquisite "Telephone Wire" - but the moment passes, the opportunity fades. And they drift further away.
"Fun Home" is equally adept at capturing lighter moments, including the Bechdel siblings at play and the rush of first love. In these and other scenes, this musical does dazzle - minus the jazz hands.
“Fun Home”
★ ★ ★ ★
Location: Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St., Chicago. (800) 775-2000 or
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday to Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday through Nov. 13
Running time: About 100 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $25-$113
Parking: Paid lots nearby
Rating: For older teens and adults, contains mature subject matter, strong language