By Pauline Joy Gutierrez
A pensive musical piece knocks on the door of Philippine theater: it’s one that looks back on the life of a lesbian cartoonist and her complex relationship with her closeted gay father.
Based on the 2006 graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, the Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of the same name goes onstage around these parts courtesy of Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group. It is Fun Home’s first licensed international staging outside the US.
“It’s a groundbreaking and trailblazing musical that needs to be seen by audiences all over the world,” Director Bobby Garcia said.
Garcia has been entrusted to lead the Philippine production of Fun Home, which gathers no less than Lea Salonga and Eric Kunze, who are reunited after playing Les Miserablés on Broadway in 1993.
The two, respectively, play Helen and Bruce Bechdel, the troubled real-life parents of protagonist Alison Bechdel, which is portrayed by Ghost The Musical’s Cris Villonco.
The two-hour, 41-act musical chronicles on Alison’s past and present as she relives her unique childhood at the Bechdel’s funeral home business in rural Pennsylvania. Gradually, it centers on her growing understanding of her own sexuality and the looming, unanswerable questions about her father’s own hidden desires.
“These are not the easy stories to tell,” Salonga said in a roundtable interview with the cast of Fun Home at Makati Diamond Residences.
“This is a family story about secrets that are kept within, well, a family unit. Things that are said, things that never get said and things that you hold inside you for years.”
Fun Home’s narrative builds on the collective pull of memories from the Bechdel household members, as well as the complexities of dealing with a dysfunctional family and the struggles of the characters in embracing their true identities. Ultimately, it concludes why Alison and her father, though stuck on the same crossroads, lead separate lives. “I think everyone will be able to find something in any of the characters that they’ll be able to relate to and find familiarity with, even if this familiarity can be a little unsettling,” Salonga said.
She added: “This is probably the realest character I’ll ever get to play. This show is universal, these characters exist everywhere in the world, and all any of us in the cast can do is to be as honest and as real with [our portrayals]. Because that’s what the show is all about—it’s about real emotions and real people and a real family.”
The production is also keeping all the original elements from the original musical adaptation, with book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine Tesori. Cris Villonco said: “The script is intact, nothing’s been edited out. We’re here to show this story; we’re creating this so that people will be aware of what people like Alison go through to come out.”
With the musical exploring critical themes, like sexual orientation and self-identification, Villonco said, “In the Philippines people like Alison Bechdel exist, and I’d like to think that we can put up a show, like Fun Home, from which people don’t back away.
“Here, everything’s been treated with sensitivity and respect. And, really, in everything we do, we make sure we give the material the care that it deserves. And that, I believe, we in the production have done,” Villonco said in conclusion.
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Fun Home has a limited run of 18 shows until November 27 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium in RCBC Plaza, Makati City.
1 comment
It should be spelled as Lea, not Leah. Thanks.