In August I took a surprise trip to New York City. I made a pilgrimage to the Shakespeare statue in Central Park and hung out with friends on the High Line. I also saw lots of theater, including more than a dozen short plays in the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (full disclosure: one of them was mine).
Because I was in the nation’s theater mecca, I made a point of catching two of the hottest shows on Broadway right now. Let’s face it: It’s going to be awhile before most Madisonians will get a chance to see these amazing shows. And although I spent a small fortune on tickets, it was well worth it. I found both Fun Home and Hamilton transformative experiences that reminded me of why I love this medium so much. I believe the success of this type of boundary-pushing theater represents a hopeful cultural current.
Fun Home, based on the autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, is a musical about Alison Bechdel’s dysfunctional childhood and coming-out story, writ large across a long, oval stage in Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theater. Transformed into a Tony Award-winning production by Lisa Kron (Well) and Jeanine Tesori (Caroline or Change, Shrek the Musical, Violet) it introduces audiences to Bechdel’s life using three Alisons; a 10-year-old girl (played brilliantly by Sydney Lucas), a college-aged woman (embodied by the charming and awkward Emily Skeggs) and the 43-year-old cartoonist who is trying to write the story of her life (the nuanced and self-effacing narrator, Beth Malone).
The play revolves around the complicated, sometimes warm, but ultimately heartbreaking relationship between Alison and her father. As she announces at the beginning of the play, “My Dad and I both grew up in the same small Pennsylvania town and he was gay and I was gay and he killed himself and I …” she pauses, “became a lesbian cartoonist.” As scenes jump back and forth in time, the audience meets Alison’s long-suffering mother Helen (Judy Kuhn), her firmly closeted, temperamental father, Bruce (Tony winner Michael Cerveris), her first girlfriend Joan (Roberta Colindrez) and the family’s charismatic handyman Roy (Joel Perez), who becomes one of Bruce’s lovers.
Young Alison frequently escapes her parents’ verbal warfare by retreating into whimsical 70s-style songs where “everything’s alright,” such as the Partridge Family-esque “Raincoat of Love.” Alison and her younger brothers celebrate the family’s odd distinction of owning a funeral home, which they call “Fun Home” in a hysterical radio commercial of their own invention. Her awakening about her own sexual orientation comes when she sees a butch lesbian delivery woman at the local coffee shop and sings the transformational ballad, “Ring of Keys.”
Bringing a biographical story to Broadway, with a strong through-line and fully three-dimensional characters is hard. Doing it as a brilliantly structured, tuneful musical with magically inventive staging in the round is mind boggling. A Broadway show with a lesbian protagonist was, before now, unheard of. All of these make Fun Home a triumph of originality. It is also a staggering artistic and commercial success. I think it’s because even though Fun Home is absolutely about issues of coming to terms with one’s sexuality and identity, it also taps into universal themes: the complicated bonds of family; overcoming disappointments in the people we love most; and realizing there is a way to reconcile with the past, no matter how painful, and move forward.
Hamilton is perhaps the most talked-about and lauded musical on Broadway at the moment. At first glance, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s masterwork seems wholly improbable: a hip-hop musical based on a minor figure in the American Revolution covering the first decades of the United States’ efforts at self-government. But the life of Alexander Hamilton, as told by Miranda and his large, diverse cast, is electrifying. Filled with fascinating characters that probably weren’t mentioned in your American history textbook, it is the epic story of a self-educated, ambitious, “bastard, orphan, son of whore” from the Caribbean who immigrated to America and then worked to establish its independence, its financial systems and its governing structure, alongside Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and many more well-known leaders of the period.
Vibrant, arresting stories of war, scandals, political intrigue, personal rivalries, romance, jealousy, infidelity, blind ambition and tragedy fill the stage at breakneck speed. The musical styles — from hip-hop and rap to British pop and contemporary ballads — flow from one moment to another, perfectly communicating the themes while capturing the characters’ unique voices. Miranda’s lyrics are packed in tightly, giving many of the songs unexpected and complicated rhymes, filled with humor, masterful wordplay and historical authenticity.
What’s most extraordinary about the production — which moved from the Public Theater to Broadway’s Richard Rodgers Theatre in August — is that no single performance overshadows the others. Miranda, as the lead, has surrounded himself with a killer cast.
Intense, athletic choreography keeps the chorus members moving throughout the performance and a simple set composed of brick walls and large wooden beams morphs easily from battlefield to ballroom to statehouse. Six years in the making, the energy, originality, complexity and precision of this enormous story is what sets it apart from any musical that has come before.
I’m hoping we don’t have to wait long before the show tours to Madison or even Chicago because I can hardly wait to see it again.
In the meantime, I’ll bet my ticket money that Fun Home and Hamilton are shows that are going to make an impact on our culture — here and everywhere.
