Fun Home

Based on the graphic novel by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, "Fun Home" is an unconventional, intriguing, nearly soft-spoken musical. The orchestra has no horns, reeds and strings combining to set a soothing, wistful, ironic mood. The narrative is a journey back in time.

From the start, we know it is Bechdel's memoir. The actress plays Bechdel herself, as opposed to, say, the way Clifford Barnes stands in for Christopher Isherwood in "Cabaret." She describes what ostensibly might be described as a halcyon childhood.

Alison, her two brothers John and Christian, and her parents Bruce and Helen share a sprawling house, with lots of odd charm. The parents are patient and usually reasonable, the kids are normal, neither icky angels nor scary delinquents. Bruce teaches English in their small town, in addition to running the funeral home.

There's an elaborate pun in the title. "Fun Home" could suggest fun house (like the carnival attraction) but also a funeral home. When the children tape a commercial for the family business, popping in and out of a coffin, you get the idea on the subtle and not-so-subtle tone of this alluring show.

Bechdel is played by three actresses, portraying her as a girl of ten (I'm thinking) a teenager starting college, and of course, the adult, our narrator. She's always off to one side, watching, remembering, witnessing.

As a young girl, her life seems pretty normal. She loves her mother, her brothers, and adores her dad. Her dad is easy-going, except on the odd occasions when he inexplicably seems to lose it. When she exhibits her own paths of self-expression, he gets surly. Her drawings are (to his mind) poorly executed, and he tries to shame her when she doesn't want to wear a dress to a birthday party.

It isn't as if she's an unmistakable tomboy or does these things to defy him. She's crazy about her pop. This is part of the beauty of "Fun Home." We are asked to participate more than some shows might ask. When Alison's dad flips, we see it's his problem. He's obviously not a monster, but there's something horribly wrong.

We follow Alison through her life as a kid, and then a college student. As she begins to come to grips with her alternative sexuality, her identity as a lesbian, the secret of her dad's queer orientation emerges in parallel. While Alison might be scared, she gradually understands the fulfillment of attachment with women in that way.

Conversely, we see Bruce is so traumatized that he cannot confide in his wife, connecting with other men in secret. We can't ignore the impact of prevailing attitudes from the father's generation, but this deep streak of pain and anger is a shock when we consider the Bechdel household. These people aren't Bible thumpers or Wonder Bread bourgeois.

When Alison comes home from college to visit, she brings her first girlfriend, Joan. We (and Joan) are shocked to see the magnificence of Alison's house. Before this, the set for "Fun Home" was comparatively sparse, various rooms only suggested by furniture and such.

In the second act, the skeletal milieu has been replaced by fourth wall convention, exposing how Bechdel's matrix appears to other people. In contrast to the sweet, raucous cheeriness of her childhood home, there is an air of cold, angry, repressed chaos. Herein lies the strategy of "Fun Home," I think.

There are few explosions in this story, and very little is obvious. It isn't magic realism, but neither is it mundane. Bechdel's lesbianism isn't treated as pathological or freakish and the wisdom behind the text is never articulated. "Fun Home" trusts us to process with very little prompting and none of the rhetoric that often accompanies theater about queer love and queer lives.

"Fun Home" runs through September 24 at The Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora Street, Dallas, Texas 75201. For information or tickets, call 214-880-0202 or visit www.attpac.org