'Fun Home' Is One of MMT's Very Best

Mill Mountain Theatre's latest offering, "Fun Home," ranks among its most powerful in recent memory. The Tony Award-winning play is adapted from Alison Bechdel's six-year-old graphic novel and runs weekends until July 3 on the Waldron stage at MMT. 

The shows are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $20 and $15 and can be bought at https://ci.ovationtix.com/36191/production/1078748.

"Fun Home" is part of the theatre's Fringe Series, which produces plays that are more challenging than most of its main stage offerings. "Fun Home," the story of a lesbian daughter and a closeted gay father who dies suddenly as they both face their "queerness," certainly fits that definition.

The show, a celebration of Pride Month, is directed by Katharine Quinn, based on the graphic memoir by Bechdel, played here in the 30-year-old version by New York actress Hayley Palmer. The play looks at Bechdel's relationship with her father as an often-confused child, who adores her dad but is often hurt by his actions, and a college student denying, then realizing she is a lesbian.

The story is Bechdel's look back at the impact her father's hidden gayness and her own latent lesbianism affected both of them, as well as the rest of her family, especially her mother, who had lived with a marriage that was a sham.

Quinn's direction of sparkling material is spot-on and the singing and acting from a relatively large cast (especially for the small Waldron Stage) is extraordinary. The singing voices are uniformly big and powerful--even the voice of the child Alison, played by young Roanoker Riley Whisnant--and the music ranges from celebratory to deep sadness. It is all affecting, powerful and important in the quest for us all to understand each other. Stephanie Berger plays the college-age Alison.

Others in the case include Carlyn Connolly as Mrs. Bechdel, Michael Hunsaker as the big-voiced dad and Alexandra Rivers as Joan, Alison's lover.

This is one of those plays that makes me especially appreciative of the courage so frequently shown by Mill Mountain Theatre in its selection of material. 

(Note: Strong language and sexual references, as well as a relatively tame love scene between Alison and her lover might give some people pause.)