FUN HOME at the Young Vic - Drawing out the past...

I had never heard of Alison Bechdel's 2006 graphic novel/memoir FUN HOME until it's musical adaptation transferred to Broadway in 2015 where it won five Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book.  I can't say I was particularly interested in it until the Young Vic announced it was going to stage it's London premiere and I thought "Uh-oh, that will sell out there so I had better go - just in case".  I am glad I did because I enjoyed it a lot.

The Young Vic production is staged by the Broadway creative team - directed by Sam Gold, choreographed by Danny Mefford, designed by David Zinn, lighting by Ben Stanton - so it's a rare opportunity to get the full intention behind the original musical over here.  To be honest, I can't say I totally loved the score but allied to the excellent performances, I was won over at the end.

Alison Bechdel wrote (and drew) FUN HOME to come to terms with her upbringing in a Funeral Home (FUNeral HOME) in Pennsylvania.  If that wasn't odd enough, it was only when she went to University - and came out - that she realized she had been unknowingly living in an emotional pressure-cooker: her father - full-time teacher, part-time funeral director - was a closet homosexual who had indulged in risky encounters throughout his marriage, even leading to police involvement.  After a visit from Alison to the now-bleak family home, her father walks in front of a speeding lorry.  Her father might have been destroyed by his sexuality but Alison is liberated by hers...

Lisa Kron's book slides back and forwards in time as Alison reviews her life: from Small Alison first realizing that she might be different to Medium Alison's coming out while confronting her family's secrets.  Indeed I felt that Kron's book is better than her lyrics, I am sure she would say that repeating a line three times reflects Small Alison's limited vocabulary but after a while it got wearing "I wanna play airplanes / I wanna play airplanes / I wanna play airplanes..."  Really Lisa?

Jeanine Tesori is on a bit of a UK roll at the moment: THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE has just toured (cancelled abruptly by shady producers), CAROLINE OR CHANGE is due to open later this year in the West End after a sold-out run at Hampstead and now FUN HOME is sold out at the Young Vic.  Her score was certainly soaring at times and had her usual pastiche numbers - a Jackson 5-style number when Alison and her brothers pretend to be in a tv ad for their Fun Home, and a Partridge Family pastiche about living in a loving family - but they stay in my mind while I am in the theatre, none of them have stayed with me since.  However within the show they worked very well, I really liked the scene where Small Alison and her brothers are visiting New York with their father, and when she catches him leaving them alone at night-time, he sings her a lullaby, almost whispered and a capella, you could hear a pin drop as we watch a moment of tenderness while knowing he wants her to sleep so he can leave them to have sex.  

Sam Gold's direction is excellent however - you can believe all characters have an inner history and motivation - and he brings out performances which draw you in to the story (apart from one).  David Zinn and Ben Stanton's contributions also make this show a surprisingly visual delight - there was a reveal in the second act which even elicited an 'ooooo' from the audience.  The music also sounded rich and full under Nigel Lilley's musicians, hidden away at the back of the stage.

As I said, one of the nine performers, for me, stood out for the wrong reasons: Zubin Varla as Bruce, Alison's father, gave a jangling, odd performance that was resolutely charmless.  As written, Bruce is an unsympathetic character so the actor playing him has to have some spark of charisma and humanity to understand him but Varla remains a cold fish throughout so his desperate suicide makes no impact.

No such problems with Jenna Russell as Helen, Alison's schoolteacher mother, hers is a performance that, from the start, is intriguing.  Tense and stoic, Helen's life is spent watching for signs of Bruce's infidelity and this finally cracks when she tells Alison of her unhappy life; Russell's singing of the angry "Days and Days" was one of the show's highlights.

Kaisa Hammerlund was very good as Alison, hardly ever offstage and totally sympathetic; she also had one of the best musical moments: riding in the car with her father on her last visit home, they struggle to speak to each other and the moment to connect is lost while Alison watches the telephone lines stretching out into the night.  Eleanor Kane also created a sympathetic Medium Alison, stumbling bashfully into her lesbianism.  She was partnered with the delightful Cherrelle Skeete as her fellow-college student lover Joan.

Playing Small Alison was Harriet Turnbull, she was remarkably charismatic and shone with a directness that totally swept you along with her; none more so than in her solo "Ring of Keys" where for the first time, while sitting in a diner with her unobservant father, she notices a butch lesbian delivering a parcel and immediately feels a connection.  Hers was the performance of the evening. She also had a good onstage partnership with Archie Smith and Eddie Martin as her siblings.

Who knows if FUN HOME will transfer, it certainly deserves a chance for it's remarkable originality, production and performances but would it find an audience?  Watch this space...

 

THREE DAYS IN THE COUNTRY: Marber can't stay for the month

Much has been made of Patrick Marber's 'writer's block' which has meant that his new play THE RED LION is his first since 2006.  Well it would appear the genie is out of the bottle now and residing at the National Theatre.

His play about semi-professional football THE RED LION is currently playing at the Dorfman auditorium, he had a hand in sprucing up Farquhar's THE BEAUX' STRATAGEM at the Olivier and now he is featured at the Lyttelton with his adaptation of Turgenyev's 'A Month In The Country' here re-named THREE DAYS IN THE COUNTRY.  Marber obviously is too busy to write a whole month!

I had seen a production before back in 1988 with Celia Imrie, Helen Fraser, Faith Kent and Sophie Thompson but could remember little about it but that it featured silly people falling in love with all the wrong people but this production (directed also by Marber) peels back layers to reveal the sad, lonely people behind the comic situations.

Natalya is married to Arkadi, a rich landowner, and they have a loving son Kolya but she longs for something more, something out of touch, a secret, exciting experience.  She flirts with the family friend Rakitin who hangs around primarily in the hope that she will finally take him seriously but Natalya's dream of excitement arrives in the shape of Belyaev, a young tutor for Natalya's pretty ward Vera.  But of course, he is also the object of affection for Vera too...

The initial frivolous nature turns more serious as Natalya tries to make her wishes become reality and her actions start to impact on those around her.  Sometimes you shouldn't wish too hard...

I must admit that after a stressful day at work the first act rather floored me and I found myself drifting but then found that the effect of Owen drifting too made me concentrate and focus, and I like what I saw very much.  Marber's adaptation is crisp and clean, the relationships quickly established among the large cast of characters and at times it was obvious that this was the same writer as CLOSER as the characters found it very easy to say what they hated about those who they are supposed to love.

The real surprise of the show is the abstract set by Mark Thompson, a bare stage - and the Lyttelton is a large stage - with a set that mostly consists of see-through plastic walls and a free-floating red door with the cast seated around the back of the stage, ready to make their entrances if and when.  Neil Austin's subtle lighting also contributes towards the overall delicate feel of the production.

The big casting coup of the show is to have tv names John Simm as Rakitin and Mark Gatiss as snobbish local doctor Shpigelsky who becomes embroiled in Natalya's attempts to steer Vera away from her tutor.

Simm usually leaves me cold but here he was excellent, giving a vinegary performance as Rakitin, knowing he will get nowhere with Natalya but hanging around just in case.  Gatiss also gave a delightfully characterful performance as the disdainful doctor, all too aware of his shortcomings, who after careful consideration proposes marriage to Lizaveta, the plain companion of Arkadi's mother.

This delightful scene was superbly played by Gatiss and Debra Gillett, a comedy of embarrassment as painful to endure as anything Mike Leigh could have thought up - especially when Gatiss' back gives out making him hobble and crawl around the stage while proposing!  The cast also bristles with marvellous performances: Lily Sacofsky is a real find as Vera who finds her first vision of love is flawed, Gawn Grainger as a gruff German tutor, Cherrelle Skeete as Katya, the family maid also on the lookout for love and escape and it was nice to see Lynn Farleigh as Arkadi's disapproving mother.

But for me the performance of the evening was Amanda Drew as Natalya.  This is a role that could easily have been given to a starrier name but Drew effortlessly pinpoints the character's restlessness, wanting more out of life than just being a wife or mother and in particular, her final scenes of distress in the face of the collapse of her dreams was wonderfully judged and more effective for seemingly coming out of nowhere.

Despite being a bit noddy at the start of the play, I was won over by the exquisite performances and Marber's back-to-basics production.  I am thinking a second visit may just be on the cards....  It is highly recommended for anyone who would like an intelligent but moving evening.