[Image description: a comic called “Play Therapy” by Alison Bechdel, done in shades of blue and white. Alison is a white butch with short dark hair.
A theater is showing Fun Home; three posters for it are visible on the building. Under an awning are two silhouettes. One tells the other “Your parents would be so proud!” The narration at the top of the panel says “A book I wrote has been turned in to a musical that’s opening on Broadway. This has been as exciting and as glamorous as you might imagine.”
The silhouettes are revealed to be Alison and another woman. Alison scratches the back of her neck and says, “Uhh…well…they would be a lot of things…” The narration says, “But given that my book is about my coming out as a lesbian, my father’s closeted homosexuality, and his likely suicide…”
Alison and the woman are standing below large, cut-off text that says “Something / a Miracle.” Alison says, “But I’m not sure ‘proud’ would be one of them.” The narration continues, “…There is also a certain dissonance to it.”
Onstage, Alison’s father tells her and her siblings, who are playing in a coffin, “Kids! Get out of there! Now!” The narration explains, “The ‘fun’ home of the title is the family funeral home my dad ran.”
An all-text panel says “It would be strange enough seeing fictional characters one had created brought to life onstage. But this is my actual family.”
Alison sits in the audience, her eyes obscured by her glasses, watching her same-age counterpart sing “Maps,” the lyrics of which are “Dad was born on this farm. Here’s our house. Here’s the spot where he died.” The narration says, “Another dissonant thing about the musical has been trying to understand my relationship to it. It’s not mine. I didn’t make it. But it’s my life.”
In 2010, Alison nervously pushes a CD into her computer while holding the script for Fun Home. Narration says, “The playwright Lisa Iron and the composer Jeanine Tesoro worked for years before I saw the script or heard any of the songs.”
Alison reads along with the script to the music, holding her glasses and looking haunted. She is listening to the final song, “Flying Away,” the lyrics of which are “Daddy, hey, Daddy, come here, okay? I need you!” The narration says, “I guess I had been expecting that a musical version of the book would be a bit artificial—a lighter, arm’s-length take on my childhood. I was not prepared for the opposite impact.”
Driving in the car, Alison cries along with “Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue,” the lyrics of which are “He wants the Hepplewhite suite chairs back in the parlor…” The narration says “Here was my distant, repressed family brought close. I listened to the score over and over again.”
In a workshop in 2011, the cast holds hands for bows in front of a standing ovation. Narration says “It seemed to get to the emotional heart of things more directly than my book had. And certainly more directly than my parents and I ever had in real life. If you can get some brilliant artists to make a musical about your childhood, I highly recommend it. It’s very cathartic.”
Alison’s parents are both smoking in Elizabethan costumes. Narration says “My parents met in a play, in college.”
Her parents are sitting in an audience before a show starts. Her mother holds a playbill for “Private Lives,” and watches other people talking. The narration says “Mom acted in summer stock, and Dad was on the theater’s board of directors. They made regular pilgrimages to Broadway.”
Alison takes a playbill for Fun Home from an usher who looks similar to the woman her mother was watching in the previous panel. Narration says, “I can’t help wondering what they would make of seeing themselves turned into characters on the stage.”
Her parents appear in the audience, singled out from the rest of the people. The stage is empty except for the table Allison writes at. Narration says “But of course, if my parents could see the play, there would be no play.”
In the audience, Alison holds her Fun Home playbill and closes her eyes. Narration says “For the occasional, flickering moment, though, I’m able to see past this paradox and imagine them in the audience.”
A spotlight shines on Alison’s drawing table. Her parents are still in the audience but no longer singled out. Narration says “They scan the crowd. The house lights go down. My mother and father are rapt, excited to be in the theater. My impossible wish is that the play can heal them, too.”
