Liars and Saints

  Lisa Kron is one of America's most interesting writers. After a play and a musical, she is kicking butt with "Somebody Somewhere." Her most recent script asks questions about gift-giving (a favorite topic of mine). A gift can be an expression of love, a subtle form of aggression, a farcical error, a mystery. Sam arrives late to a softball game because she has stopped to pick up donuts. She already knows that her friend Fred is trying to lose weight; he has made a point of saying this. But Sam fails to read the room. The donuts seem fun, but they also seem like a way of undermining Fred, a way of declaring war. Fred's wife bluntly (too bluntly) says, "I wish you hadn't brought food. I see what you do to your body, but you don't need to drag my spouse down, as well." This is obviously brutal--but, if there weren't some truth in the remark, it wouldn't sting at all. In a parallel scene, a group of church ladies presents two gay men with a gift...

A love song is the thought you have as you study the rearview mirror--the things you couldn't say when you were in the other person's presence. "I hope you don't mind that I put down in words....how wonderful life is while you're in the world." "I've seen all the movie stars in their fancy cars....But I don't want to waste more time...." "I can't stop loving you. Why should I even try?" In the musical "Fun Home," Alison narrates her father's life: Quick dashes mark the property ends. Beech Creek, a rope that turns and bends... Little squares for houses, strung along roads. The land--transfigured into topographic codes. Alison plants her father on this specific land, then she dares to consider where his thoughts may have been roving. He was gay, and in denial; he had an active mind. Four miles from our door-- I-80 ran from shore to shore. On its way from the Castro To Christopher Street. The road not taken-- Just fo...

  It's been a major year for Lisa Kron, a writer on the series "Somebody Somewhere." The Washington Post put this show toward the top of its list of the year's best TV options; I think it should be number one. My great admiration for Kron is tied up with "Fun Home," the first time a lesbian protagonist appeared in a Broadway musical. Kron has a way of writing about gay lives that resists cliche, uses humor, and tells the truth. For example, she notices a little girl who doesn't want to wear a barrette; this seems like a small thing, but the pink plastic makes the girl want to vomit. It stirs up a kind of wordless fury. Unmoored, the girl retreats to a fantasy world; she drafts a love letter to a butch lesbian far off in a crowd. "I thought it was s'posed to be wrong....but you seem okay with being strong...I feel...You're so...." Kron's characters are lost, searching, doing their best. Her girl-protagonist imagines asking the butch ...

 I'm on the record supporting Broadway musicals that are centered on crimes ("Sweeney Todd," "Kimberly Akimbo," "Little Shop"). Another of my favorites--because it seems so counterintuitive--is "Fun Home." A literal crime forms the heart of this show; Bruce Bechdel has been shtupping some underage males. Additionally, consider Bruce's spiritual crime: his way of tormenting himself and, by extension, his family. Bruce's descent into madness, and suicide, is mesmerizing; you almost can't believe you're seeing this on a musical stage. Alison Bechdel's memoir begins with a game of airplane, but it's Lisa Kron's brilliant move to imagine the argument that occurred minutes earlier: Daddy! Hey, Daddy! Come here, OK? I need you. What are you doing? I said, come here. You need to do what I tell you to do. Listen to me. Daddy! LISTEN to me. I wanna play airplane..... This is--apparently--just a kid trying to get her father...