Fun Home

"'Fun Home' is, yes, a musical about a lesbian cartoonist whose closeted father killed himself, but it is also about how we try to figure out the puzzle of our parents; about how we reassemble our childhood; about memory itself. It remains the inventive, entertaining, in places exhilarating, and almost inexpressibly heartbreaking show I saw Off-Broadway at the Public Theater a couple of years ago. And it is now one of those rare Off-Broadway musicals that actually improves when it transfers t... Full Review

"Alison Bechdel’s provocative tale has now been translated to the stage in the extremely ambitious, extremely moving musical 'Fun Home.' While this show is hardly standard Broadway fare, this production, directed with great acuity by Sam Gold, is not just better than it was over a year ago at the Public Theater; it deserves to be the clear favorite for this year’s Tony Award for Best Musical." Full Review

"The truth is that as personal as Bechdel’s tragic tale can be, it’s also a universal story of children refusing to believe that, hard as they try, they might never have the last word when it comes to their parents. It’s fitting that the show closes with a small moment in which little Alison and her father were as close as they ever would be. Sometimes it’s surprising to realize which things we remember vividly and which fade away." Full Review

"'Fun Home' compellingly conveys for an entire generation of gay men and women what being 'different' and what coming out was like...What emerges uniquely is a portrait of three individuals trapped in a time when there were no guidelines or role models for the personal crisis each of them faced individually...The cast is uniformly effective...'Fun Home' is a heartfelt, moving memoir of self-discovery." Full Review

"It’s a beautiful tangle of a story expertly staged by director Sam Gold. This theater is in the round, and it’s one of the smallest houses on Broadway so the show feels incredibly and appropriately intimate...I could go on and on about this show — how important it is for audiences to see, how it’s making commercial Broadway more relevant — but I think you get the point. 'Fun Home' is a special, special show." Full Review

“Why make Fun Home into a musical if you are going to strip away what makes it Fun Home? There is some literary name-dropping, but nothing on the intertextual level of Ms. Bechdel’s comic, and obviously the unique graphic element is lost on stage. What was a text about much more than just being gay, is here simply a coming out narrative. There’s nothing wrong with that, but what I know to be a funny, moving, and endlessly smart story is reflected back at me as fairly average Broadway fare.” Full Review

"There would have been a time when Alison Bechdel’s frank graphic-memoir would have never been considered for musicalization. But in these more enlightened times for both society and musical theater, Tesori and bookwriter-lyricist Lisa Kron were able to tackle the subject – and succeed mightily...Among the newcomers are Gabriella Pizzolo, Cole Grey and Zell Steele Morrow as the Bechdel tots...They’re delightful and hilarious in the show’s title song." Full Review

""The book is tightly structured with well-defined characters mined from the graphic novel...The music is the best new score on Broadway...Director Sam Gold has put together a polished production that is passionate, energized and sensitively mines the emotional depths of the musical." Full Review

"The set is beautiful and allows for these seamless transitions that allow this theme of memory and this swirling vortex of Alison's life. The show is beautiful, you should really see it." Full Review

"I fell hard for 'Fun Home' when I first saw it, and had worried that this rare beauty might be damaged in its relocation. But this production has only improved, not least because of its having to be reimagined for a theater-in-the-round space. The audience becomes part of the Bechdel family circle. For better or worse — we’re home." Full Review

"'Fun Home' has its weaknesses. The in-the-round staging often leaves you staring at an actor’s back. And as appealing as the Alisons are — all three actresses are perfect — the torment of the unhappy parents makes them more interesting characters...Still, 'Fun Home' is an important show. That it managed to make it to Broadway at all is a reason to rejoice." Full Review

"New! Fresh! Original!...Lisa Kron assembles words and images in unexpected ways to dramatize the bittersweet memoir...Sam Gold’s direction brings lucidity to the complex mechanics of staging a story that takes place in three time frames. And Jeanine Tesori’s haunting music doesn’t sound a bit like anyone else’s. " Full Review

'Fun Home' is a thing of rare beauty: a Broadway musical of enormous intelligence and sensitivity. The libretto grabs you with humor, irony and poignant detail; the music moves with great skill from tuneful pastiche to striking dramatic force...'Fun Home' is not your ordinary Broadway musical, because it is extraordinary." Full Review

"There's always a hint of worry when an off-Broadway show transfers to Broadway. Will it lose the magic? Does it have what it takes to survive? In the case of 'Fun Home,' the answers are: 'heck no' and 'yes!' In fact, the thrilling nature of this groundbreaking look at adolescence has increased with its move...'Fun Home' is absolutely mind-blowing." Full Review

"Both Alison and her father sing, in heartfelt tones: 'I want to know what’s true/ Dig deep into who/ And what and why and when.' The Broadway 'Fun Home' still leaves a lot of those interrogatives unanswered, yet it’s remarkably gratifying, often heartrending, and fiercely humane." Full Review

"'Fun Home' is the best Broadway musical in years. 'Fun Home' is an emotional roller-coaster ride, a grippingly heartwarming story mixed with some of the most smart and joyful musical numbers on Broadway...To those who think that 'Fun Home' doesn't sound like their sort of entertainment: this is musical theatre at its best, so go anyway. You're likely to be surprised, and thrilled, and enthralled." Full Review

"Despite all that’s excellent about 'Fun Home,' it stops significantly short of being an excellent musical...Kron and Tesori have accomplished enough to make this one of the season’s few must-sees if you’ve never seen it before. But if 'Fun Home' shows how the illusion of mundanity can become vibrant uniqueness when allowed to flourish as it most desires, that’s a transformation we’re allowed to experience only from a distance." Full Review

"'Fun Home' is still basically what it was when I reviewed it before: the story of a lesbian cartoonist trying to understand her father, who killed himself shortly after revealing to her that he, too, was gay. Back then I called it 'hilarious and crushing,' and it remains so now. Maybe less hilarious and more crushing." Full Review

"To say that 'Fun Home' is the best new musical of this season would be an understatement. 'Fun Home' is a thoroughly dynamic piece that is just as emotionally piercing, good-humored and enjoyable as it is sharp, focused and culturally conscious. It belongs on the list of the smartest, most innovative musicals written in the past decade." Full Review

"Composer Jeanine Tesori and writer-lyricist Lisa Kron have done something extraordinary here, reshaping cartoonist Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir into an unconventional memory play that seamlessly integrates music and drama...I found it a beguiling experience, almost unbearably poignant at times...For anyone who cares about adventurous musical theater, it's not to be missed." Full Review

"'Fun Home' still moves you to your foundations...It’s unconventional grist, but the material is handled with such expertise that it speaks universally about life, love, family, surviving... Be prepared to wipe away tears." Full Review

"'Fun Home', the thoroughly engrossing, poignant show is neither depressing nor prurient. Quite the opposite: The staging by director Sam Gold remains so sensitively compelling that an awkward cast change and an even more awkward space have barely diminished the power of the show...'Fun Home' is a marvelous achievement, full of humor as well as rue. Its 100 transporting minutes fly by and then it’s gone — not to be forgotten." Full Review

"'Fun Home,' the gorgeously wrought and emotionally overwhelming new musical, is not so much interested in what happens to a loving but riven family, but why it happens, and, yet more important, what you do, as an old child, about the pain of your parents. It's a 100-minute piece that never lets you out of its embrace for a moment." Full Review

"Into a Broadway season dominated by movie retreads comes 'Fun Home,' the grown-up, disturbing, blazingly original heartbreaker. The musical play has lost a bit of close-up intimacy but none of its gripping enchantment in the transfer...This treasure retains the unpretentious feel of director Sam Gold's masterly production." Full Review

"The best new play on Broadway at the moment is Lisa Kron’s book for the musical 'Fun Home.' The mix of book and music cannot be faulted, and it’s not just the songs that linger. Composer Tesori’s use of recitative is sparing and her underscoring for some of Kron’s dialogue is every bit as exquisite as the big arias." Full Review