Joyous, heartbreaking “Fun Home” on the Huntington

Arts

A stellar solid delivers an beautiful model of the celebrated musical primarily based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel.

“Fun Home” on the Huntington Theatre, Boston, by way of Dec. 14.

Judging by its latest productions, right here’s a truism in regards to the Huntington Theatre: You’re prone to stroll out of there figuring out extra about what it means to be human than you probably did whenever you went in. This is very true of the theater’s present present, an exquisitely executed tackle the tragic and hilarious 2013 musical “Fun Home.”

Based on the award-winning graphic novel memoir by the cartoonist Alison Bechdel, it fairly actually revolves round her efforts to place that household historical past to paper: Her drawing desk is seen on stage all through, a relentless reminder of her solitary and generally painful makes an attempt to mine her personal previous. It’s a previous that features her personal coming of age as a lesbian (“a lesbian cartoonist,” particularly), and her fraught relationship together with her father, a closeted homosexual man who vacillated wildly between being caring and abusive, generally in the middle of the identical dialog. Oh, and this all takes place in and across the household enterprise, an area funeral residence — the “Fun Home” of the title.

If that each one sounds heavy, it’s. But the story is leavened by a lot relatable humor — Alison’s early romantic foibles will make you cringe, however in the easiest way — and directed with simply the proper gentle contact by Logan Ellis to finally be simply as joyous as it’s heartbreaking.

A number of that’s owing to Sarah Bockel, who makes probably the most of what’s, in lots of circumstances, a thankless function: She performs a grown-up Alison, who — like her drawing desk — is on stage all through the present to “witness” her personal recollections of her childhood and adolescence. The conceit doesn’t 100% work: It turns on the market are solely so many largely wordless reactions you’ll be able to should your personal previous traumas and embarrassments when you’ll be able to’t really take part in them. 

But, Bockel makes probably the most of these limitations, specifically when Alison’s yelling out sarcastic and ironic “captions” to the motion on stage, and when she’s given the chance to harness the frustrations from her childhood by way of the transferring music and lyrics by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron. Her numbers “Maps” (“I can draw a circle his whole life fits inside,” she sings of her doomed father) and the pressing, finally mournful “Telephone Wire” — by which grown Alison lastly will get to step inside one in all her personal adolescent recollections — are completely highlights. 

Of course, none of this may work with out a convincing “Small Alison” and “Medium Alison” to inhabit these recollections, and casting administrators Janet Foster and Brett Duffy deserve a raft of credit score for locating Lyla Randall and Maya Jacobson — they merely embody these characters, in a approach that feels each uncannily actual and profoundly transferring.

Randall, as Small Alison, is a bundle of power, but additionally successfully considerate in a delicate approach as her character begins to grapple together with her household’s uncommon dynamics. And her supply of “Ring of Keys” — the musical’s standout track, encapsulating all of the confusion, humor, and longing of Alison’s childhood — is a dead-on present stopper. Randall’s voice is childlike sufficient to be actually touching, whereas avoiding any of the “sun’ll come out tomorrow” histrionics that may generally mar kids’s performances.

Jacobson’s Medium Alison, in the meantime, seems and seems like she was plucked proper out of Bechdel’s graphic novel, and has clearly mastered the artwork of unveiling myriad difficult feelings, generally opposing ones, in a single look or expression. (Sit up shut in the event you can.) Her efficiency captures what it actually should really feel wish to expertise the suits and begins of lesbian self-discovery, to not point out the need to be knowledgeable cartoonist, which couldn’t have been a straightforward mixture. 

As for Jacobson’s voice, its aching mezzo soprano carries with it that very same waterfall of competing feelings that her performing does, specifically in “Changing My Major,” an excellent paean to younger love/lust/obsession that will likely be achingly acquainted to anybody who’s skilled any of the three.

Also key to the success of “Fun Home” are Nick Duckart as Alison’s troubled father Bruce and Jennifer Ellis as Helen, her long-suffering mom. Helen might be probably the most tragic character within the play, having spent many years attempting to maintain a “normal” household life that she knew, mainly from the beginning, was primarily based on one thing apart from actual love. Ellis conveys a real unhappiness and frustration within the function, and her quiet, quivering soprano makes “Days and Days,” the story of her long-crumbling marriage, merely devastating.

Characters like Bruce, in the meantime, run the hazard of coming throughout as (excuse the expression) a comic book e book villain, there merely to supply the supply of the principle character’s traumas. But, that’s not the case right here, due to the mix of Bechdel’s unsparing supply materials, Kron’s multilayered e book, and Duckart’s uncanny means to attract out the unhappy turmoil that lays beneath Bruce’s troubled facade — one which encompasses no small quantity of psychological sickness along with sexual frustration. Musically, on numbers just like the heart-wrenching “Edges of the World,” his voice remembers the untethered melancholy of Mandy Patinkin’s most interesting Sondheim work.

Of course, a aspect impact of the present not shying away from Bruce’s critical flaws, and embracing Duckart’s complicated portrayal of them, signifies that in some scenes the viewers is pressured to sit down in its discomfort at Bruce’s actions — sure, really really feel issues, which is a trademark of “Fun Home” as an entire.

The primary gamers are aided and abetted by a stable supporting solid: Sushma Saha as Alison’s school love curiosity, Caleb Levin and Odin Vega as her siblings, and Wyatt Anton as numerous younger objects of Bruce’s untoward affections. Musically gifted to a fault, it’s a solid of singers who’re additionally skilled storytellers: In an period of pop musicals, it’s refreshing to listen to a contemporary rating that doesn’t pressure the actors to belt on the high of their lungs or add riffs and runs each 5 seconds. The music of “Fun Home” speaks for itself, and the performers’ notes float and radiate by way of the auditorium. As weak as these characters are, their voices are robust and spectacular.

And it’s all achieved in service of a narrative that does a tremendous job breaking down the supply materials — 230-plus pages and hundreds of hand-drawn panels — to its essence, taking some liberties for dramatic impact however leaving the bones of the narrative intact. That contains some moments of sheer hilarity, like the children filming their very own industrial for the household enterprise within the raucous, Motown-style “Come to the Fun Home.” Others, involving Bruce’s sudden pivots and eventual downfall, are wrenching.

A collection of set items that slide each forwards and backwards and up and down, some well-utilized props — mud flying off an previous piece of linen, glimpses of Alison’s cartoons on crumpled papers, and a unadorned corpse are amongst them — and a few delicate lighting additionally all add to the combo. (One significantly chilling lighting impact towards the tip of the play is assured to make your coronary heart catch in your chest.)

Ultimately, the Huntington’s “Fun Home” is, like life, humorous and poignant on the similar time, the trials of its characters all of the extra tragic due to how undoubtedly widespread they have been in the course of the period of Alison’s childhood, and nonetheless are on many fronts. “I want to know what’s true,” the characters declare time and again, however in the long run, the play is about the way it’s potential to study to dwell with questions whose solutions we’ll by no means know. In different phrases, to be human.

“Fun Home” runs on the Huntington Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave., Boston, by way of Dec. 14, 2025. Buy tickets at huntingtontheatre.org.