Skip to main content

Broadway

 How do you help someone with a severe mental illness? What counts as help, and what is, in fact, just an effort to be controlling?


These seem like unusual questions for a Broadway musical--but they're a part of "Fun Home." At the climax of the show, Alison takes a drive with her dad. She knows something is very wrong--but she feels powerless, paralyzed. She stares out the window at telephone wires--a symbol of interconnectedness. She notices the creek--"partly flowing, partly frozen"--which seems to stand in for the "clogged channel" that connects her with her own father.

As Alison gropes for a topic of conversation, her father does his own flailing. He proposes a trip to a bar--which is inappropriate, because Alison is a college freshman. Dad becomes lost in a reverie--a speech that he delivers to himself, not to his daughter. He offers bullshitty thoughts about a work project--a task that will never be completed.

At the end of the song, we leap to the present: Dad is dead, and Alison is now in her forties, drowning in regret. She tries to reach back into the car: "This conversation can't be our last. Make this moment not the past."

But--amazingly--the writers allow the scene to end. Dad says, "What a fun drive!" ....And the curtain falls.

I love how little resolution there is--which seems like an accurate reflection of real life. But we still have to keep trudging along. Alison doesn't have heroic powers, and she isn't even very courageous; this makes her an extraordinary, and relatable, protagonist, in an extraordinary Broadway show.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
3 comments
Read more

Joshie

  When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...
2 comments
Read more

Josh at Five

 Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...
Post a Comment
Read more