Alison Bechdel is the artist/author of the graphic novel (comic book to oldsters like me) "Fun Home" and is a cartoonist. She is now 55 years old.
Two comments I heard stand out for me. One is the comment of a theater goer as she exited the building: "They sang such PAIN". They did. The father, the mother and the daughter all carried pain and fear, plenty of pain and fear. Add in large doses of shame and confusion and loneliness and doubt.. The other comment came from Alison in the play. Three actresses played her at different ages: a child, a college student at Oberlin and an adult. As a college student, she could tell, she could feel that she was homosexual. At one point, she explains to her lesbian lover that she doesn't feel that she is clear enough to attend meetings with the real lesbians. By then, we audience understand her and we know she is clear and ready and in need. We know that she is as real as anyone else but her youth and surprise make us sympathetic to her need for time and self-acceptance.
The play is a musical and there are plenty of songs. Song itself is a dramatic device. When the singer turns to us and sings, we know that time in the play is suspended and that we have a chance to hear and see into the character in ways not usually available in everyday life.
Another powerful and evocative device is having the adult observing the scene of a talk between a dad and the daughter. Again, in everyday life, we don't get to see ourselves sitting listening to a parent talking to us. The play gives us a chance to feel what the parent is feeling, what the child is feeling and what the adult observer can now see and hear that was not clear before.
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