Fun Home

Note: Fun Home the musical, like Bechdel’s original memoir, is nonlinear and circuitous. This is a memory play, and Alison is at once the catalyst for the memories, an observer of them, and, in some instances, a participant. Bechdel describes the structure as labyrinthine: “going over the same material, but starting from the outside and spiraling into the center of the story.”

Alison Bechdel, a forty-something lesbian cartoonist, is examining a box of her father's collected "junk." As she examines each piece and the memory associated with it, her recollections come to life in the form of her father, Bruce, and her eight year old self, Small Alison.

Small Alison demands that her father play "airplane" with her, but he has other plans. Bruce unpacks a box filled with linen tablecloths and rusty silver, explaining to Small Alison what treasures these items are. While Small Alison pays attention, she is most enthusiastic about the dead mouse at the bottom of the box,