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Tesori, Kron & Bechdel: Fun Home - Kaisa Hammarlund - Young VIc (Photo Marc Brenner) |
The musical based on Alison Bechdel's graphic novel exploring her complex relationship with her father
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Eleanor Kane, Cherelle Keete - Young VIc (Photo Marc Brenner) |
Alison Bechdel's graphic novel explores her complex relationship with her father, with the Alison of the present looking back on the past with a distinct authorial voice. It is a story in which there were no easy answers, as Alison came to terms with her own sexuality and came out to her parents she learned that her father has had affairs with men throughout his marriage. Not long after Alison's coming out to her parents her father died, apparently committing suicide and the book is an exploration of Alison's relationship with her father in an attempt to make sense of all this.
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Ashley Samuels, Zubin Varla - Young Vic (Photo Marc Brenner) |
In one sense, the home-life Alison Bechdel describes is remarkably dysfunctional, but most lesbians and gay men will be able to identify with Medium Alison's journey to understanding her sexuality, her first relationship and eventually taking her girlfriend home to meet her parents and most notably coming out to her parents. This latter, done by letter and eliciting at first no response, resonated very strongly with my own experiences and clearly resonated with many others in the audience.
The music is surprisingly fluid, moving in and out of the dialogue in a subtle way, yet bringing in enough up-beat point numbers to make the work uplifting too. Alison Bechdel's wry humour comes over, and I loved the young children's pop number as an advertising jingle for the funeral home, and the big production number which counterpointed the fantasy dream family with real life.
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Jenna Russell - Young Vic (Photo Marc Brenner) |
Kaisa Hammarlund, Eleanor Kane and Harriet Turnbull were beautifully complemented as the three Alisons. Kaisa Hammarlund's wry detachment in the face of family history, Eleanor Kane combining naivety and enthusiam, and Harriet Turnbull wonderfully confident as the rather demanding Small Alison. In fact, all three children, Harriet Turnbull, Archie Smith and Eddie Martin, were stupendous. Both Jenna Russell and Zubin Varla gave strong performances as Alison's parents, roles which switched between two eras. And their highly empathetic performances enabled us to sympathise and understand. Cherrelle Skeete was delightful as Joan, whilst Ashley Samuels popped in various roles as the men in Bruce's life!
The piece played without an interval, carrying you forward. Thanks to the musical's book capturing something of Alison Bechdel's humour, the piece avoided the pitfall of sentimentality at the end.
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Tesori, Kron & Bechdel: Fun Home - Brooke Haynes, Kaisa Hammarlund, Zubin Varla- Young Vic (Photo Marc Brenner) |
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- Handel & Vivaldi from Grace Davidson & the Academy of Ancient Music (★★★½) - cd review
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- Russian Romantics: music for violin & piano by Glinka, Glazunov, Cui, Rubenstein, & more (★★★) - CD review
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