Is Fun Home too good for Broadway- Page 3

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 7:47am

"I'm thinking back to the many comments about how it would never make it to or make it on Broadway, let alone win the TONY."

 

 

All naive. Anyone who knows how the theatre world operates nowadays knew from the outset that all of those things would come to pass.

Updated On: 5/29/16 at 07:47 AM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 8:30am

So now all tourists are lumped into one catergory and called idiotic because they do not see a certain show. Just because you like a show does not mean automatically everyone will or that it will appeal to everyone. Calling people idiotic because they will not see a show you like is a bit on the narrow minded side.

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 8:32am

"Calling people idiotic because they will not see a show you like is a bit on the narrow minded side."

 

Thought tyrants are not exactly open minded. Nor do they allow anyone else to be. 

[South Florida]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 9:15am

The story packs a wallop and dosen't need to be seen to tear at your heart.  I don't get emotional too often, but the story of Allison coming to grips with her father's life, the secrets, his flaws, and her acceptance moved me.  It made me tear up the first three times I heard it.  I only saw it once and the intimacy of the round made it special.  It is not however something I would want to see often and if going again I would hope to see younger actors play the mother and father.  The roles were played by actors in their fifties and the roles call for a time span in their lives from early thirties to early forties.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 10:06am

What a ridiculous thread indeed. If it's "too good" for Broadway,  where does it belong??

[HogansHero]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 11:10am

@A8 I see your conspiracy theory generator is at full power this holiday weekend. Don't look now but your pathology is showing.

@A8 and Roxy re "idiotic tourists" --idiotic is an adjective that modifies tourist. Modifiers are not equalizers. There are idiots in this world. There are tourists in this world. Some idiots are tourists. Some tourists are idiots. Not all tourists are idiots. Not all idiots are tourists. And not all out of town visitors are tourists either. 

Updated On: 5/29/16 at 11:10 AM

[Ranger Tom]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 5:53pm

After Eight said: "It had/has the power of the "arbiters of culture" and the media mega-machine behind it, and that's as good as gold. And it's just that gold that enabled it to move to Broadway and then to run there as long as it has. If word of mouth is finally catching up with it, then that's a good thing."

 

The power of the arbiters of culture is immense.  But is this the same as saying that it got the gold because it was PC?

[haterobics]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 5:55pm

Mr Roxy said: "Calling people idiotic because they will not see a show you like is a bit on the narrow minded side."

Repeatedly calling people out for seeing a popular show for which it is hard to get tickets is completely normal, though.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 6:03pm

After Eight said: ""I'm thinking back to the many comments about how it would never make it to or make it on Broadway, let alone win the TONY."

 

 

All naive. Anyone who knows how the theatre world operates nowadays knew from the outset that all of those things would come to pass.

 

"

You mean that the theater industry now operates in a way that guarantees success for ambitious, innovative, and progressive work that challenges, touches, and surprises its audiences such that it develops a strong fanbase before it is even reviewed? How uncharacteristically positive! I don't usually feel that positive!

Updated On: 5/29/16 at 06:03 PM

[indytallguy]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 10:57pm

Being called naive by After Eight is perhaps the greatest achievement of my career. I probably should quit at this pinnacle of performance.

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 5/29/16 at 11:16pm

Scarywarhol said: "I'm bi and it took me until I was out of college to really understand that, because even gay people and communities frequently act as if such people don't exist. Finding your identity may happen at any age, but I think most LGBTQ people have early experiences like "Ring of Keys," which is more about recognition and an inchoate sense of belonging than a label or identity. That's what makes that song so emotional to me; remembering moments like that. Also, Alison actually DOESN'T understand or accept that she is a lesbian until she is "of age" in college. Medium Alison gets all those moments. "

I'm also bisexual and had a similar experience in terms of not figuring out my own sexuality until I was well into my twenties. I definitely had "Ring of Keys" moments when I was younger, but there was never a conscious realization until I was an adult. Looking back, as Alison is in Fun Home, I can put those pieces together and understand why I gravitated towards certain things and certain people. 

Anyway, I took my 59-year-old mother to see Fun Home when they first opened on Broadway and she loved and was moved by it. I've also taken two straight friends (one a woman and one a man) to see it and both loved it as well. I don't think identification with it is limited to people who identify as LGBTQ, it just adds another layer to it if you love it. 

I also wonder whether After Eight actually likes La Cage, or if he just likes it because it beat Sunday in the Park for the Tony.

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 5:48am

"I also wonder whether After Eight actually likes La Cage, or if he just likes it because it beat Sunday in the Park for the Tony."

 

Of course I like it. It's funny, moving, tremendously entertaining, and has a wonderful score by our greatest living composer-lyricist, Jerry Herman. That it beat a tuneless bore for the Tony is simply lagniappe.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 7:05am

Lisa Kron's explanation for the universality is grounded in a fairly obvious but critical idea about the theater: most stories we find ourselves drawn to don't really portray us.  We aren't cowboys in Oklahoma, a matchmaker in New York, a band salesman, or a family escaping pogroms.  We aren't Argentine dictators or singing animals, a murderer or a cannibal pie baker. We find our humanity in people entirely unlike ourselves in theatrical storytelling. We don't go looking for mirror images, only to have our emotions engaged by beings sharing emotional journeys we recognize as journeys.  To find yourself enthralled and in tears over the family's plight in FUN HOME requires no self-identification as LGBTQ, nor experience with cartooning or funeral homes; only a willingness to listen, not even a necessarily open mind. The show does the rest.    

[gypsy101]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 7:05am

the fact that you think he's the greatest living composer-lyricist is adorable.

Updated On: 5/30/16 at 07:05 AM

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 7:38am

Gypsy,

If stating a fact is being adorable, then the multiplication table is the most adorable thing going.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 8:46am

After Eight said: "Gypsy,

If stating a fact is being adorable, then the multiplication table is the most adorable thing going."

It is posts like this that confirm you are just a posturing troll here. Many here mock you for being stupid and ignorant but I see you for what you really are doing here.  

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 3:48pm

It is posts like this that confirm you are just a posturing troll here. 

Oh, he confirmed that long ago.  I'm surprised so many still engage in his ridiculous baiting.  Whether he's a phony (most likely) or sincere (which makes him a hypocritical buffoon), what's the point arguing with him?

[RockyRoadPicks]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 5:16pm

Auggie27 said: "Lisa Kron's explanation for the universality is grounded in a fairly obvious but critical idea about the theater: most stories we find ourselves drawn to don't really portray us.  We aren't cowboys in Oklahoma, a matchmaker in New York, a band salesman, or a family escaping pogroms.  We aren't Argentine dictators or singing animals, a murderer or a cannibal pie baker. We find our humanity in people entirely unlike ourselves in theatrical storytelling. We don't go looking for mirror images, only to have our emotions engaged by beings sharing emotional journeys we recognize as journeys.  To find yourself enthralled and in tears over the family's plight in FUN HOME requires no self-identification as LGBTQ, nor experience with cartooning or funeral homes; only a willingness to listen, not even a necessarily open mind. The show does the rest.    

 

"

Bravo! Before Fun Home, I've never attended a Broadway show or exhibited any interest. It has to be exceptionally GOOD to make me travel a long distance to watch, and I did... TWICE.  I'm a conservative, not a liberal, so I'm not watching because of the "LGBT theme". I'm watching because it's so damn good. And it was still packed on Saturday night.

Fun Home at Circle in the Square was perfect. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

[RockyRoadPicks]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 5:18pm

One more thing I just learned. Did Lin Manual delayed Hamilton so that Fun Home could be in the running for the Tony? If so, kudos. That was a brilliant move.

[imeldasturn]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 6:09pm

I think this canonization of LMM is pretty ridiculous, tbh

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 6:13pm

It would have had more to do with the Public learning from its past mistakes about rushing shows in, and also wanting to avoid cannibalizing their own shows. It was a smart move. 

[Jarethan]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 7:32pm

I didn't respond to this question initially because I thought it was pretentious, in the first place, and I don't like the show, in the second place.  In fact, I hated it.  I am not a homophobe, so my dislike has nothing to do with that possibility.

A long-time New Yorker, I moved to Florida a few years back, and only get to NYC two or here times a year, for 15 - 18 performances in NYC a year.  As a result, I tend to resent it much more when I don't like a show...so that could contribute to my intense dislike of the show.  Nevertheless, I definitely left this show, as did my wife and friend, feeling very annoyed that I had wasted a slot.  It was dreary, dreary, dreary.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 7:38pm

To After

 

Advocates of free speech are all for it as long as you agree with whatever they say. Stray from that and that is where the **** hits the fan.

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 7:44pm

Mr. Roxy,

 

Absolutely. It's just a shame our beloved theatre had to be subjugated to the tyranny of the thought police.

Updated On: 5/30/16 at 07:44 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 5/30/16 at 7:53pm

The thought police are alive and well and prospering in every part of everyday life. Sad to say but that is life these days.Criticize a certain show and the villagers will be after you with pitchforks and torches straight out of a Universal monster movie.This is why I no longer post in any of the threads.It simply is not worth it.