“He was gay and killed himself and I was gay and became a lesbian cartoonist.” – Allison Bechdel, Fun Home
Review. Mimi Jacobs
“He was gay and killed himself and I was gay and became a lesbian cartoonist.” – Allison Bechdel, Fun Home.
The final Republican Presidential candidate debate before the Iowa caucuses had Nikki Haley head to head with DeSantis while toeing the line between patients’ rights, a parents’ purview and teacher autonomy on all such topics LGBTQIA+ women. This brought me back to this week’s 10 year reunion revival of Fun Home at Joe’s Pub. Will Niki Haley support the show’s female author or ban the comic book version from school libraries? Can this piece survive the woke wars or will it be getting it from both sides?
It’s not every day that you get to see a Tony award-winning Broadway show return to its original off-broadway roots with the original cast, so I took my bets and blindly bought the last 2 tix available for Fun Home’s return home, a benefit for Outright International.
When the original child star of the cast zoomed in, I was unsure what to think. But then she ended with, “I hope you can feel my heart say ‘hi.’ And as cheesy as that is, you could not help but feel the love. The entire audience erupted in applause and the show had not even begun.
Some standouts: the new crop of kids 8–10 years old performing the wry Fun Home commercial to an updated tune of the Jackson 5’s ABC; plus Joan, the GF, for comedic timing; and Andrew Carmellini never fails to get it right: eat the bitter greens salad which is anything but, with pears, hazelnuts and red wine vinaigrette. Come for the salad. Enjoy the show.
Does it stand the test of time? I came across a PDF of the original comic book on which Allison based the musical on the shared drive for English teachers at school and pondered those same questions. When I flipped through the book, the drawing of a college years scene with two women naked in bed, a full frontal of Allison’s breasts, I asked, perplexed, “Do/did we teach this? And if so, which class and grade was subject to this?” Now what’s wrong with breasts you ask? Women can nurse and even be topless in public in NY. I still feel a move to Florida coming on. But, as Tucker Carlson would say, I’m just asking questions. “Where’s my bronzing stick?”, indeed.