Fun Home Transfer? — Page 3

Inception, that has to be some of the most absurd comments I've ever read about a show on this board. I think your inferences into the material (and those portraying it) speak to your own personal issues.

Just because someone has a penchant for boys (some of which were underage) it doesn't mean that Bruce ever touched his own sons. I can honestly say that never crossed my mind during the show or reading the graphic novel. Again, I think that speaks to something in you that it was the place you automatically went.

"Ring of Keys" is probably one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard in a theatre. I am a gay man and could completely relate to the emotions being conveyed in the lyrics and the scene. I think you've taken the song to be some kind of predatory lusting of a young girl to an older woman. To say that it made your skin crawl to see a child being able to emote these kind of feelings is ridiculous. Do you feel like no child actors should be allowed to portray gay characters?

And don't even get me started on your A/C complaint. It's the WINTER so a theatre expects people to come in dressed for such. Would you rather be sitting there sweating because you dressed for the cold outdoors and not the sweltering heat of a theatre?

I must say that I'm glad you've gone back to whatever hole you crawled out of and I hope to never read any of your "reviews" again.

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I agree 100 percent with Sauja and Clyde. "Ring of Keys" is one of the most powerful, beautiful songs I've ever heard performed, and its theme and lyrics are entirely appropriate for a 10-year-old. She admires the delivery woman for her looks and her strength, and it's something young Alison has never seen before. The song magnificently depicts how the chance encounter changed her life. She sings, "Can you feel my heart saying hi?" It's totally innocent and age appropriate. As the parent of a daughter, I would have absolutely no problem having her sing that song at age 10. And my, that actress put that song over exquisitely.

On the other hand, the smutty strip tease that Olive performs in Little Miss Sunshine is pretty icky.

Maybe you heard, "You make me feel all warm down there," which is the disco remix. (Kidding!)

Updated On: 11/18/13 at 12:52 PM

"But there have been little shows that did do very well."

Which ones are you thinking of, and why do you think they succeeded?

"I still think Fun Home deserves its shot."

Agreed. And it's having that shot right now. Broadway isn't the only shot there is.

Updated On: 11/18/13 at 01:00 PM

"This made my skin crawl."

Mine, too. In fact, it was one if the most stomach-churning moments I've ever experienced in the theatre. Listening to it was like being force-fed curdled milk.

If a child is going to sing in a musical, let it be about about tea with jam and bread or a cuckoo in a clock. And to nice music, too, not some sickly whine.

Oscar Hammerstein, do we ever need you now.

At this point, After Eight is just seeing what he can get away with saying. He ratchets up his rhetoric every season. And every time he relates an opinion.

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Too bad After Eight has blocked, by his own admission, EVERYONE who regularly challenges him.

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"Please note that to her the song Ring of Keys is about discovering desire."

"Discovering desire" is still a pretty far cry from your skin-crawling initial take to the material.

It does seem like you brought some baggage into a theater where a sweater would have sufficed.

Beyond Fun Home, though, when you find yourself on the same page emotionally as After Eight, that would scare the hell out of me, personally. I'd be looking for a therapist ASAP if that happened to me.

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Now that I know, inception, that I did understand you correctly, I can’t help myself from responding further to your reactions (even though many have already made similar points).

First, regarding the father, it’s quite a large leap to make from a repressed gay man sleeping with presumably consenting (something I think we can assume due to his punishment – if he was out-and-out raping these boys, I think he would have served a much more severe sentence) teen boys who are a couple of years underage to molesting his own sons. Not to say that what he was doing was in any way okay, but I think it is clear that there is a vast difference between the two. I would expect these two types of people to be clumped together from an ignorant anti-gay person, but not from someone who is gay himself.

From a strictly structural aspect of the musical, if this had gone on with his sons, I think that is something that absolutely would have been addressed and a much bigger deal in the plot. As it wasn’t, I don’t think the show gives the audience any reason to wonder if that occurred or not. If it had, it would have been discussed.

As for “Ring of Keys,” as other have said, the moment is not sexually charged. Bechdal mentioning about her “discovering desire” in the song still does not have sexual implications. As others have said, there are so many different kinds of desire. As we see during small Alison’s number where she is wearing the jacket, her desire as a kid was for a specific persona. She wants to save the girl in that number, but never does it transgress to being sexual. When she sees the butch woman, it’s the first she has ever seen someone who embodies that persona that Alison has of herself. As she talks about in the song, she doesn’t even know what kind of feelings seeing this woman is stirring up in her, nor does she know why. All she knows is she is feeling some sort of connection with her. In fact, Alison doesn’t even realize she is attracted to women – even claiming to be asexual – until she actually has sex with a woman, many, many years later. Now, whether she was simply suppressing these feelings or genuinely didn’t know, the fact is that she did not let herself realize these feelings. So, why would there then be a song about her realizing her “sexual desire” for women when she is a child?

My girlfriend, who I saw the show with, said that she has never experienced a song in a musical that she has so specifically been able to identify with as much as she could “Ring of Keys,” and it had absolutely nothing to do with sexual attraction.

But even so, let’s pretend for a moment that “Ring of Keys” is about small Alison first being attracted to a woman – how would that be so terrible and skin-crawling? I don’t think it’s that taboo of a subject to recognize that children develop crushes and, most of the time, this has nothing to do with the physical attraction (beyond thinking someone is “cute”). Children of that age are generally not even aware that there is a physical extension of liking someone beyond kissing (well, perhaps in today’s world, they discover this much quicker, but certainly the Alison they show in the play was not aware of this). So, say small Alison is attracted to this woman. The lyrics are nowhere near sexually explicit, so the only thing that the audience could infer is that she has an innocent crush on this woman. How could this be interpreted as skin-crawling and inappropriate? I will even take it a step further and say that even if it was about Alison being sexually attracted to the woman, why would it be such a terrible thing to have a child first discovering these feelings? Again, it’s not as if the lyrics are her detailing her physical yearnings.

However, I think it’s quite clear that “Ring of Keys” is not about Alison’s sexual attraction to women. Forgive the composers for actually daring to look deeper into the psyche and emotions of a child, especially one who has been born into a particularly unique situation.

Inception, I am very sorry for whatever experiences you may have had and it’s understandable that your own experiences would have an effect on your viewing of the show, but I hope you can also understand that, even though your own experiences have colored your reactions to this musical differently, that is not necessarily what is actually happening onstage and to pass such judgment to say that the song could have a negative psychological effect on the child singing it is, to me, ludicrous.

I do not mean this as an attack nor do I have any stake in trying to change your mind. I wrote this response, however, more for those who have yet to see the show – I would hate for someone reading this to go into “Fun Home” with these thoughts in mind or to refrain from seeing the show after reading your interpretation. Not that your opinions are not valid, but I truly do believe they are very specific to you and portray a very skewed vision of the musical.

Gilmore, very well stated! Great post. I agree with you 100 percent.

I don't think you are wrong. Rush isn't set aside, but based on availability.

Although, since they do have members who can cancel seats, even a sold out show can have openings, but I'm guessing those go up for full price first online and remain available until the last minute before they turn into rush seats.

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"Great New York Times article on the development of Fun Home"

Surprise, surprise.

Yes, the NY Times, the very same publication which praised Gentleman's Guide as highly as Fun Home.

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In theatre egos run pretty high and when an artistic director gets rave reviews, they are only too happy to let their show go all the way to Broadway to compete for the Tony.

And egos don't run bigger than Oskar Eustis, the artistic director, for the Public.