No. 39. “Ring of Keys”
FUN HOME (2015). By Jeanine Tesori (music) and Lisa Kron (lyrics and book). Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.
Spring 2015. You’re at Fun Home, a musical based on Alison’s Bechdel’s memoir of growing up in a funeral home, embracing her queer identity, and confronting her father’s closeted homosexuality and suicide. As grim as that may sound, the musical is rather, well, fun. It’s staged in-the-round on a sparse stage with eclectic furnishings while Alison, a middle-aged butch lesbian, sits behind a drafting table. She sings a prologue about how “it all comes back,” and for the rest of the performance she watches and comments on episodes from her past. The first memory features a ten-year-old Small Alison and the rest of the Bechdel clan—her father (Bruce), mother (Helen), and siblings—as they prepare their home for an important visitor. Helen tries to keep a positive attitude while both meeting Bruce’s exacting standards and shielding her children from his temper. At the end of the number, adult Alison comments, “Caption: My dad and I both grew up in the same, small Pennsylvania town. And he was gay, and I was gay. And he...killed himself. And I…become a lesbian cartoonist.” Scenes featuring Small Alison alternate with scenes following Medium Alison during her freshman year at Oberlin College. Through these vignettes—connected by a tuneful score by composer Jeanine Tesori and lyricist/librettist Lisa Kron that is full of ear worms and heart—we get a picture of Alison’s complicated relationship with her parents, their difficult marriage, and her own sexual orientation. Late in the show, Adult Alison remembers fateful visit to a luncheonette with Bruce. Small Alison sees a butch delivery woman, prompting a sweet moment of personal discovery, “Ring of Keys.”
In the late 90s a group of composers started emerging as a next wave of musical theater writers, with challenging commercially risky works typically presented by the growing force of institutional non-profit off-broadway theaters (Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center, etc.) These composers usually had three names and were almost exclusively male. Jeanine Tesori (who, like Jason Robert Brown and Tom Kitt, began her career as a music director and arranger), entered the chat with her musical Violet, an intimate off-Broadway chamber piece about a young woman with a scar across her face who takes a bus to meet a faith healer. With Thoroughly Modern Millie, she found the big Broadway hit that continues to elude her contemporaries. Though much of its score came from the 1960s movie it’s based on, Tesori’s original contributions blended seamlessly with, and frequently outshone, the existing material. Her next piece was a return to the the off-Broadway aesthetic with the magical-realism memory play, Caroline, or Change (book and lyrics by Tony Kushner). Her career has continued to dabble in big budget family shows(Shrek the Musical) as well as quirky off-Broadway works and, more recently, opera. Through it all she’s shown incredible versatility, working with a variety of collaborators in a range of musical styles. With Fun Home, Tesori found the perfect blend of her sensibilities. On one hand, it has dark subject matter adapted from an unconventional source, ripe for complex musical scenes. It also delivers a number of satisfying crowd-pleasing songs. (I’ve been sitting behind the same gaggle of tipsy subscribers at my local Broadway touring series for years. They love a jukebox musical or anything bright and shiny and look through their phones during quieter more challenging shows. The big showcase numbers in Fun Homehad them locked in.)
Librettist Lisa Kron’s background made her an ideal candidate for adapting Bechdel’s graphic novel. She co-founded the theater company The Five Lesbian Brothers, in addition to writing two successful innovative autobiographical plays. She had never written a musical before, but luckily for everyone one of Tesori’s secret powers is turning playwrights into lyricists, and Kron rose to the challenge with witty lyrics that organically sit on the music. The libretto is a master class in adaptation finding a dramatic through-line in the fragmented source material and capturing its specific distinctive tone. Many of Fun Home’s major plot points are, at least on paper, as bleak as a musical can get. But it’s surrounded by warmth and humor in a way that feels totally unified. It really shouldn’t work at all, but instead it’s become one of the most produced shows in America. And Kron may not have invented the 3-actresses-as-1-lead structure, but we sure did start seeing it A LOT following Fun Home’s success (see Summer, The Cher Show, and The Notebook to name a few).
Recommended Recording: ”Ring of Keys” Fun Home (2015 Original Broadway Cast)
Sydney Lucas originated the role of Small Alison off-Broadway at the age of 10, and continued with the show for its Broadway run. She gave an uncommonly intelligent performance with both quiet intensity and childish naivety. When I saw her on Broadway, there was a moment where she gave Bruce a chilling knowing glare that is forever etched in my mind. The producers wisely chose to use her complete performance of “Ring of Keys” as their Tony number, and it’s one of the all time greats. For a time, I worried no one else would be able to do the song justice—that it needed a uniquely perceptive kid like Lucas. But by now I’ve seen a number of professional and amateur productions, and the song always works. Because that’s what great writing does—it maps out the journey in words and music, creating a roadmap for whoever performs it.
Alternate Performances
Thus far, Fun Home has only received two cast recordings—and honestly, it’s more like 1.5. Lea Salonga starred in a Philippines production that was not recorded, nor was the original London cast recorded.
2013 Off-Broadway Cast - Fun Home was first recorded during its extended off-Broadway run at the Public Theater. This is the 0.5 recording I mentioned. Much of it is reused on its Broadway counterpart, with some bits re-recorded to reflect cast changes (most notably the role of Medium Alison), and some other tweaks to the material. This edition went out of print once the OBCR came out.
Is it Covered by The Rat Pack, Audra McDonald, or Glee?
Audra McDonald has not recorded anything from Fun Home (though we the people deserve her take on Helen’s big ballad “Days and Days.”) As far as I can tell, the only Tesori work in Audra’s repertoire is the lullaby “Lay Down Your Head” from Violet, which closes her album How Glory Goes. It’s the aural equivalent of a hug.
In the Wings
We’re almost at the end of Notable Creatives—No. 40 will close out our third playlist. To be honest, I’m not sure when I’m going to get that out—the next couple of weeks are going to be a whirlwind as I prepare to perform in Shoeless: a Musical Tale of Cinderella with the North Coast Men’s Chorus (and featuring Nina West!). Until then, you may want to look up “The Bechdel Test,” an idea that started as a strip in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For, then became an earnest metric that grew in popularity until Bechdel was like “y’all, it really was not that serious.” (I’m paraphrasing, but you’ll figure it out.) Oh, and someone made a Lego music video of this song.
Catch up with all the songs to date!
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