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| Kaitlyn Russell, Becca Ayers and Sydney Vance photo by Reg Madison Photography |
It is not hard to find a musical that is emotional and beautiful, but few reach into your heart, and pluck on it’s strings like a harp in the same way as Fun Home does. Most people have experienced struggles with their family, their own identity, or their sexuality in some way or another, and Fun Home blends all of these into a beautiful story of love and human connection that anyone can connect to. The show swept the 2015 Tony Awards, with 10 nominations and 5 wins, including Best Musical, and now Phoenix Theatre is bringing it to the Valley.
Michelle Elias has been with Phoenix Theatre for several seasons, starting as an intern and rising to her current position as resident stage manager. She has worked on many shows throughout the years with the company, and while she says they often do “shows that are outside of the box,” Elias also told me there was something particularly special about Fun Home.
The show focuses on the life of Alison Bechdel, a daughter, a cartoonist, and a lesbian as she grapples with her own identity, and begins to learn all of these things about her father and his life and his own identity. Elias told me that the show is important because “representation matters,” but that it is also unique in that it isn’t just pigeonholed into being about LGBTQ issues.
“[Fun Home] doesn’t just talk on those topics. When it comes down to it, it’s about a family and it’s about a daughter’s relationship with her father and how she relates to her mom and how her views have changed as she’s grown up and as she has dealt with what life has given her. It’s hard hitting for a lot of things and people. The cast, by the end of the show, everyone who isn’t on stage is just in tears. It’s been a really unique way to look at the human experience.”
In order to tell the story to its fullest extent, the show progresses through a non-linear look at Alison’s memories, and uses three actress to represent the character at different stages in her life - from when she is a child, to her time in college, and finally as an adult working as a successful cartoonist. It may seem odd for a show to abandon the normal understanding of time, but Kaitlyn Russell who plays Medium Alison, says that it only adds to the meaning of the story.
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| Kaitlyn Russell |
The timeline isn’t the only unique thing about the show. The shows set and production are unique too. When it comes to the set, design can be a challenge for any show but it becomes much more difficult when it’s partly transparent.
“The set has clear walls,” Elias said, “Everything back stage is visible. Which means, not only is the stuff that's on stage choreographed, but we're in the process of choreographing the stuff that’s backstage as well.”
As for the creative and production team, the majority of the crew is female, which Elias says is almost a special homage to the fact that the show is written by a woman, about a woman and the show’s writers, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori were the first all women writing team to win the Tony for best musical.
“It’s really exciting, and it means that the perspective is being told as authentically as possible,” Elias said.
The show is based on the graphic novel of the same name by the real life Bechdel, and everything that happens in the show is based off of a true event in Bechdel's life. So, the women in the story are just as real as those who produce it too, which Russell said was both crazy and weird, but still exciting.
“Usually the people you’re playing are either fictional or dead,” Russell said, “It feels like more of a responsibility. This is her life story, and she’s just kind of a normal person and we kind of have to pay homage to that and not make it into something that it isn’t.”
Russell is right. Alison is a real person, turned into a character who is then reanimated on stage. Russell however, also said that her very real humanity is what makes her such a relatable character.
“What I’ve come to realize about Alison, is that she is incredibly curious, and that might seem obvious, but she is really interested in what other people have to say. In that way, I think she’s kind of vulnerable. She’s able to set herself aside and experience people... I think what makes her the most relatable is that she is so open to life.”
Fun Home is rife with not only human emotion but with spectacular music as well, from "Ring of Keys" which graced the Tony stage, to the powerhouse of "Changing My Major" which Russell instantly named when I asked her what her favorite song was.
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| Michelle Elias |
“The song is so wrought with opportunity to make choices and do cool things and just express [yourself]. I think it’s the best song.”
Russell and Elias both sang plenty of praises about Fun Home, which can only lead me to believe that a show that makes its company so happy can only be a spectacular thing to watch.
“The more I work on the show the more I realize how many different things it has to offer, and I think it can be really a valuable experience,” Russell explained, “Also, you get to see kids dance in caskets and you’re never going to see that in your whole life. That’s my pitch. Kids in caskets.”
Elias agreed that the show was something special, saying “I can’t say how excited I am to be working on [Fun Home]. You know, when the seasons come out all of us stage managers sit down and decide who is going to work on what show...When I found out we were doing it, there was not even a question. I said I am doing Fun Home. It wasn’t an ‘I would like to’ kind of thing, it was ‘no, I am doing it.’ It is very close to my heart.”
CLICK HERE for more information on Fun Home opens October 10th and runs until December 2nd 2018.
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