'Fun Home' at the Young Vic

Last week we went to see 'Fun Home' at the Young Vic, a new musical that won loads of awards on Broadway and has opened for a short run here. It's a rather strange tale based on a comic book of the author drawing her life story in comic form to help her come to terms with her family, who she is and her relationship with her dead father. She's a lesbian who only finds out that her dad is gay after she comes out to her family after going away to college.

The play opens with Alison wandering onto the stage to start plotting out the next instalment of her comic and that's when the flashbacks start and we're introduced to her younger self, her father and mother and two brothers. That sets the format for the play, with lots of flashbacks to different episodes of her life to try to shed light on what was really happening. We see three versions of Alison that I've categorised as eight years old, 18 years old and 28 years old.

Her mother and father are both teachers and the father doubles as the local funeral director (hence the title of the play). We gradually learn more about the father as he chats up former students to have sex with them and, on a trip to New York, leaves his children asleep in the hotel room so he can go out cruising. We learn little about her mother until near the end when she reveals her suffering over the years, coping with the police getting involved with her husband, her shame and loneliness, knowing that she's the optional extra in his life.

It's a musical so there's a song for every scene and the whole cast sing at different points. The three children perform a Jackson 5-esque song while playing around a funeral casket and the eight year old Alison sings a 'coming out' song after seeing a butch lesbian in a diner. One of my favourite songs was sung by student Alison after having sex with her new girlfriend for the first time, and how she tells us that her dissertation is going to be about her spine so she can examine it in detail and often. Young love, eh?

The main characters were the three Alisons and the father and I thought all the Alisons were very good - Harriet Turnbull as young Alison, Eleanor Kane as the student and Kaisa Hammerlund as the adult. The father was rather unsympathetic and charmless and played by Zubin Varla who was OK but didn't bring anything to the role to make him a bit more likeable. The mother was played by Jenna Russell whose only solo song was towards the end of the play when she explained her unhappiness to Alison while explaining that her dad was gay. It was really touching. Also a little shout out to Cherrelle Skeete as student Alison's girlfriend.

It's an interesting play and it was nice to hear the audience reaction at times as they recognised or related to some of the scenes. I'm very pleased that I've seen it but I can't actually remember any of the songs or have any great wish to see it again. Sometimes when I leave the theatre I know I want a second viewing but I was happy with one viewing of this play. It didn't really touch me and there was a hint of the 'sad life of the gay man' about it, the usual stereotype. On the other hand, realising - or rather admitting - that she was lesbian was a release for Alison, which was far more positive. Good on the Young Vic for putting this on. 

'Happy Days' at The Young Vic

Chris took me to see 'Happy Days' at The Young Vic with Juliet Stevenson. A Samuel Beckett play isn't going to be a happy go lucky song and dance extravaganza so I reconciled myself to that early on. This is that rare beast, a play that went down so well it's been brought back a mere 7-8 months after it closed, with the same cast and production. That alone says it's probably worth seeing.

It's not a play I'm familiar with so it was intriguing and puzzling by turns. It's virtually a long monologue for a single actress with the odd minor interjection from a largely hidden man every now and then. And that actress is buried up to the waist in the first half and buried up to her neck in the second half. What's that about? It means, of course, that the actress is very limited in what she can do to project her character and move the story along, particularly when buried up to the neck!

The stage is set as a gravel pit with a wall of rock behind down which, every so often, gravel slips and slides. Above is a white on white canopy representing a blinding sky. And there, in her nice blue patterned frock is Juliet Stevenson buried up to her waist in the gravel. When you first come in that part of the stage is covered by a tent under which she gets into place and then it's removed and she just sits there as the audience comes in. That must be incredibly tiring to be stuck in place the whole time. At the half time the tent comes out to cover her again and when she's uncovered she's buried up to her neck. I hope she hasn't been there the whole time.

It's that 'why' moment that lasts so long (and still goes on to be honest). Why is she buried in a gravel pit and why doesn't she get out? Is she trapped? Has there been an accident? What's going on? Is it a metaphor for something or a symbol of the state of modern society? Has the world ended and these are the last survivors? It's never explained or commented on so we just have to accept that she's buried in a gravel pit and that's the way the world is. Equally odd is her (presumably) naked husband who's hidden behind a rocky outcrop and we see his sunburned red raw shoulders and head every now and then with a few grunts and phrases and then he goes quiet.

Winnie and Willie are husband and wife  and we learn from Winnie's never ending chatter that they've had a life outside the gravel pit but we don't learn how they end up there. Winnie wakes and says her prayers, brushes her teeth, worries that she can't read the small writing on her tooth brush and tells us of the contents of the black bag beside her. The black bag that reassures her in ways that Willie can't. Every now and then she reaches in to remove some item or other and, every so often, she picks up a revolver which she returns to the bag. And she doesn't stop talking and the phrase 'happy days' keeps cropping up as she remembers happier times.

The second half opens with Winnie buried up to her neck, looking haggard and with the revolver in the gravel in front of her. She still talks to Willie but she assumes he's either left or died since she never gets a reply. How long has she been there? She still talks in her clipped middle class accent and then Willie comes crawling out from behind the rocks, fully dressed in a morning suit and hat as if it was his wedding day and crawls slowly towards her. Is he really there or is this Winnie transposing the present and her wedding day?

We'll never know because that's when the lights go out and, when they come back on, Winnie is still buried and Willie is lying there on the gravel, both still. We clap and clap and they stay perfectly still, and then we leave and they're still there. That must be one punishing play to put on night after night and being always on display to the audience. All I can say is 'wow'. It' a marvellous performance by Juliet Stevenson, ably supported by David Beames.

We left the theatre a couple of days ago and I'm still puzzling over the play - what's it about? what's it for? what am I meant to think? That's the sign of good writing and a good production. It's made me think and ponder. I've still got no idea what it's about but can accept that it just is so that's good enough for now. Y'know what? I think I'd like to see it again.

'The Scottsboro Boys' at The Young Vic

Tonight I was treated to a ticket to see 'The Scottsboro Boys' at the Young Vic, the first UK production of the last Kander & Ebb musical. I hadn't heard of it before - or the story it tells - but I'm very pleased to have seen it.

It tells the story of nine black teenagers arrested in Alabama for the rape of two white women in 1931 and all are convicted despite there being no evidence of rape. We see the lads young and hopeful, riding the train to a better life and jobs when it all falls apart and they're thrown into jail. They become a cause celebre for the North against the South which really doesn't help the lads, even when one of the women admits in court that she lied. Eventually the four youngest lads are released and the other five serve their sentences.

That makes it sound terribly serious - and the underlying story is serious - but that's where Kander & Ebb come in to make it a musical worthy of the stage to tell the story and get it before audiences. They use the theme of an old fashioned Southern minstrel show to tell the story and give it structure. I have to admit that I recognised this early on by remembering the 'Minstrel' section from the film 'White Christmas', one of the first big song 'n' dance numbers in the film.

We have the Interlocutor who tells the story and plays the role of the white 'boss' and judge and we have Mr Bones and Mr Tambo who take the story forward as they also play the roles of the sheriff and his deputy as well as the lawyers in the court case.  This is a nice motif since they're black as Bones and Tambo but then play white folks by donning different clothes. Just as the two white women are played by two of the black boys wearing a hat and a cardy round their shoulders.

And shadowing many of the scenes is a silent and mysterious woman, the only woman in the show. Who is she?

It's all a terribly professional show and it was great to see two actors in this after seeing them earlier in the summer - Adebayo Bolaji as one of the lads' leads (from 'The Color Purple') and James T Lane who played Ruby, one of the women (from 'A Chorus Line'). Julian Glover plays the Interlocutor (the 'boss', judge and governor). Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon played Mr Bones/Sheriff/Lawyer and Mr Tambo/Deputy/Lawyer respectively and they were excellent, creating laughable and macabre grotesques as they went along. I'd also single out Kyle Scatliffe for praise as the lead lad who refuses to tell a lie even when his freedom depends on it. He played Haywood Patterson who eventually dies in prison.

The show ends by taking the minstrel theme to it's ultimate conclusion in which all the black actors come on stage all blacked up and with white lips like minstrels of old. They each tell their story and what happened to them next - and none of it is pretty - before wiping off the make-up and leaving the stage as the Interlocutor commands them to perform. This was received in silence only to be followed by a standing ovation from much of the audience.

I'd recommend seeing this show if you can - there's something here for everyone.

And who is the mysterious shadow woman? You'll just have to see the show to find that out...