Fun Home @ Playhouse Square, Oct. 2--Oct. 22, 2016

Review by Laura Kennelly

Fun Home offers a bumpy, albeit musical, and speedy flight through author Alison Bechdel’s early years. Now playing at the Connor Palace Theater in Playhouse Square, Fun Home touches on secret sex lives, ambivalent parenting, domination, and obsession, and suicide. Not for the kiddos even though it features three charming child actors.

Based on Oberlin graduate Bechdel’s graphic novel, the musical features gorgeous music by Jeanine Tesori with book and witty lyrics by Lisa Kron. Oskaar Eustis and Patrick Willingham directed this Tony-winning New York show.

When I saw the show in New York at the Circle in the Square Theatre, the audience surrounded the stage from above, so we could look down on the actors. The Connor Palace’s more conventional stage worked surprisingly well, with our attention directed to various areas of the relatively cluttered space thanks to David Zinn’s scenic design and Ben Stanton’s lighting. (The lights were scenery in themselves--and in a very good way.)

Time travel necessary in Fun Home is a challenge since it covers Alison’s early growing up years, college, and career beginning. We see the story through the perspective of grown up Alison (a convincing Kate Shindle), still perturbed by her family. She introduces small Alison (a bouncy Alessandra Baldacchino), a little girl who yearns to fly, and Medium Alison (Abby Corrigan), an Oberlin student beginning to judge her family. All three actors prove likeable and make us fans of “Alison.”

Robert Petkoff plays Alison’s conflicted father, Bruce. The character doesn’t seem as likeable as he did the first time I saw the play, but perhaps that’s because I now know not to trust unsuspecting young Alison’s eyes. Susan Moniz as Alison’s put-upon mother, Helen, does an excellent job with the one-dimensional part the story assigns her. (I’d love for Bechdel to attempt the story from alternating points of view, starting with the mother: PS: Just checked and she did this, see the graphic memoir Are You My Mother? Now we can finish the story.)

Characters supporting Alison’s life journey include Small Alison’s little brothers John (Lennon Nate Hammond) and Christian (Pierson Salvador). The trio gets well-deserved laughs in the ironically-titled “Come to the Fun Home” as they jump in and out of a showroom casket (one of the family businesses is running a funeral home).

Karen Eilbacher shines as the sexy,  friendly Joan, Alison’s Oberlin college girlfriend. She inspires Corrigan’s exuberant  “I’m Changing My Major [to Joan].” Rounding out the small cast, Robert Hager plays various hunky men that Alison’s father likes.

A small orchestra directed by Micah Young provided a rich accompaniment to the proceedings just before them on the stage.

Bottom Line: Wait until you’re feeling fairly strong before you see it because it may make you think about things you’d just as soon not, such as dysfunctional families, a daughter’s distress, and how the past provides more than enough “revenge” for a memoirist.

Fun Home runs through October 22. For tickets go to playhousesquare.org or call (216) 241-6000

Photo: (From L) Alessandra Baldacchino as 'Small Alison', Pierson Salvador as 'Christian' and Lennon Nate Hammond as 'John' in Fun Home. Photo by Joan Marcus

Review of Twelfth Night at Great Lakes

Twelfth Night @ Great Lakes Theater, Hanna Theatre, Sept. 30-Oct. 30, 2016

Laura Kennelly

There’s plenty of “Wait for it . . .  wait for it” guffaw-worthy comedy in the Great Lakes Theater production of Twelfth Night now playing at the Hanna Theatre. Directed  by Drew Barr, the play seemingly doesn’t miss a chance for obvious farce (and good for that!), but it also delights in romance and unexpected love.

Like all Shakespeare comedies, the plot is ridiculous. Fraternal twins, separated by shipwreck, wash up on an island, but neither knows the other is alive. Meanwhile on that island a Duke pines for a lady who does not pine for him.  The love-struck Duke’s now familiar words open the play and set the tone for this rom-com: “If music be the food of love, play on.”

And play they do--in more than a musical sense. Local laughs come immediately in the first act when twin Viola (the convincing and comely Cassandra Bissell) washes up on a strange island and is told she’s in Illyria. She remarks in surprise “And what should I do in Illyria?” Although even Shakespeare couldn’t have anticipated an extra joke, this reference tickled Elyria residents and the rest of us too.

Viola soon disguises herself as a man to qualify for a position working for Orsino, Duke of Illyria. The Duke (a dashing Juan Rivera Lebron) thinks he loves the wealthy countess Olivia (the scornful, flighty Christine Weber). Olivia, in turn, has eyes for Viola’s twin Sebastian, (Jonathan Christopher MacMillan).

Much of the real comedy (that is, farce) revolves around the interactions between members of Olivia’s circle: her blustering uncle Sir Toby Belch (the now-legendary Aled Davies), her clueless suitor Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Tom Ford), her officious steward Malvolio (Lynn Robert Berg), her jester Feste (M. A. Taylor), and clever servant Fabian (Laura Welsh Berg). All are funny, but Berg’s fearless portrayal of Malvolio’s cluelessness (it involves a drastic change of costume and a yellow corset) takes the comedic cake. They are supported by an engaging ensemble, many of whom may be observed in the background during the play reading books (beach reading for an island setting?)

An especially delightful touch was the music, which indeed did “play on,” thanks to a very tuneful Feste (Taylor), accompanied by a muse (Jillian Kates) floating on a platform above the stage with her electric guitar. Composer Daniel Kluger and Music Director Joel Mercier created a bit of magic there.

Scenic designer Russell Metheny, and costume designer Kim Krumm Sorenson joined by Rick Martin (lighting) and Lee Kinney (sound) created clever sets that required a “double vision” at times.

Bottom Line: While some of the comic elements might be trimmed (it’s a long play), it ended with a wonderful scene which I won’t spoil. We had to wait a long time for the last laugh (hence the “wait for it” above), but the final scene was so worth it. I think the moral must be that love, truly, is indeed blind.

For tickets call Great Lakes Theater at (216) 241-6000

Photo: Ken Blaze