Sara Masterson, Monty Hays, Shad Hanley, and Emma Schuld Photo by Dan Norman

Fun Home is based on Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel published in 2006. In it, Bechdel looks back from age 43 on her childhood, youth, and early adulthood, during which time she recognized early signs of being a lesbian, even before she had the language to put a label on it. She also reflects on her relationship with her temperamental father, a closeted gay man killed by a truck while standing on the highway four months after Alison came out to her parents. Without definitive proof, Alison always considered her father's death to be a suicide. Yet the question haunts her.

The Bechdel family consists of ten-year-old Alison, her brothers John and Christian, mother Helen, and father Bruce. Helen is a theatre teacher; Bruce is a high school English teacher, operates the funeral home as a part time gig, and is a home restoration enthusiast. His frequent affairs with young men–former students, workmen hired for remodeling projects, and babysitters–are only flimsily concealed from his wife. We see Alison, middle-aged, at work drafting illustrations and captions for her graphic novel that will tell her story, observing the dynamics of her family, with Small Alison present on stage. In other scenes we see Medium Alison, a college student who gains full recognition of her identity and falls into a euphoric relationship with her first girlfriend, Joan.

Throughout Fun Home, middle-aged Alison asks unanswerable questions as she recalls events and conversations, trying to discern a shred of understanding regarding her father's death, and to make sense of the fact that he and she were both homosexuals, a common bond, yet unable to bring that commonality to build a bridge in their relationship. Of course, they were of different generations, which made a world of difference in the capacity of individuals to come out as gay. Still, Alison is not looking at this as a sociological case, but as the singular relationship between herself and her dad.

Bruce could be terribly hard on her, demanding she wear dresses and hair barrettes when she preferred dungarees and polo shirts, critical of any of her endeavors, and aloof when focused on his work or a chance to score a pick-up. Yet he could also be playful, creative and spontaneous. We first see Bruce in this light in the show's opening, when Small Alison asks–no, demands–that they play "airplane," he lying on the floor with his legs up at right angles, supporting his gleeful daughter as she balances on his feet, arms spread out as wings, soaring over the entire state of Pennsylvania, her father the apparatus for her elation.

How does this all work as a musical? Gloriously. Some of the songs give the primary characters–the three Alisons, Bruce, and Helen–opportunities to express their internalized feelings, in most cases to brilliant effect, as in Small Alison's first identification with a woman who is masculine in appearance ("Ring of Keys"), Medium Alison's exhilaration upon entering the world of sex and romance ("Changing My Major"), Helen's explanation of how she endures living with Bruce's lies and cruelty ("Days and Days"), and Alison, taking on the role of her younger alter ego, Medium Alison, struggling to broach the silence between herself and Bruce ("Telephone Wire"). Each of those songs is potent enough to draw a lump to my throat.

Early on, in "Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue," Bruce, Helen, Alison, Small Alison, John, and Bruce each sing the same song, contributing their own view of what their work-in-progress restored home means to them, setting the stage for the discordance in the family. There are also a pair of comical musical numbers. Small Alison and her two brothers play at creating a Jackson Five infused commercial for the fun home and Small Alison has a musical fantasy of life in a harmonious family ("Raincoat of Love"). Both are staged with sprightly choreography by Katie Rose McLaughlin.

The actors so truly inhabit their characters that there is never a sense of one putting on a performance, and all sing beautifully, bringing luster to Jeanine Tesori's lyrical score. Sara Masterson is deeply affecting as Alison, struggling to make artistic choices about the book she is creating, while agonizing over painful details she has chosen to revisit, trying to make sense of it all. Monty Hays captures Medium Alison's metamorphoses from an anxious adolescent stepping into adulthood with self-awareness and a hunger to live her true life. Eve Scharback is remarkable as Small Alison, conveying all of the fears, demands, and mischief of a bright and lively ten-year-old, along with her efforts to gain her father's wavering approval. This is an exceptional performance from so young an actor, who also made a strong impression last December in Skylark Opera's The Christmas Spider.

Shad Hanley is stunning as Bruce, releasing an array of ricocheting behaviors and emotions from judgmental to playful to seductive to avoidant to fraught to outright cruelty–the latter in relation to his wife. He is a man racing against his own inevitable crisis. Ann Michels, as Helen, keeps her character tightly wrapped throughout most of Fun Home, the only way to survive her ordeal, as she heart-wrenchingly conveys in "Days and Days," though her defenses do wear away later on, which Michel conveys with sudden ferocity. Emma Schuld is totally right as Joan, Alison's first girlfriend, with a winning twinkle that works its way through Alison's resistance to acknowledging her identity. Truman Bednar, as Christian, and Brock Heuring, as John, are delightful siblings to Small Alison, and especially break out the charm, along with Scharback, in "Come to the Fun Home." Berto Borroto is effective as a series of boys and men with whom Bruce has affairs, with demeanors ranging from nervously reticent to provocative.

Jason Hansen lends his customary fluid hand as music director and conductor of the five-piece band, concealed on stage behind Eli Sherlock's impressive set design, which draws applause when revealed for the first time. Bruce is a hoarder, keeping all the ephemera of his life and collecting secondhand furniture to recondition and display in his restored home–Alison tells us that his greatest affection is not for anyone in the family, but for the house. Sherlock's set is a wall of shelving, floor to ceiling, on which Bruce's trove of material goods are stowed. Those on the bottom level are drawn out as needed to provide furnishings such as the Bechdel family's piano, their sofa, their television, and Medium Alison's dorm room bed. The effect of the set places the entire story in an overly stuffed memory bank, from which Alison is reconstructing her story. Alice Trent's lighting creates atmospheric shades and spaces that give definition to the narrative. Rich Hamson's costume design and Emma Gustafson's wig, hair and makeup design convey Fun Home's time frame and add dimension to the characters who inhabit it.

This is the second time I have seen and loved Fun Home. The first was in December 2016, when the show's national tour played at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. That production was excellent, but at over 2,000 seats, the Orpheum is not the ideal venue for a show with the intimate scale of Fun Home. Director Addie Gorlin-Han's production for Theater Latté Da is equally excellent, but set in the cozy environs of the company's Ritz Theatre, it struck me with even greater immediacy. This is the perfect venue for Fun Home, and Fun Home is the perfect vehicle to bring out the best of Latté Da's considerable assets. Fun Home is potent musical theatre, and easily will be counted as one of the brightest lights of the season.

Fun Home runs through May 5, 2025, at Theater Latté Da, Ritz Theater, 345 13th Avenue NE, Minneapolis MN. For tickets and information, please call 612-339-3303 or visit theaterlatteda.com.

Book and Lyrics: Lisa Kron, based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel; Music: Jeanine Tesori; Director: Addie Gorlin-Han; Choreography: Katie Rose McLaughlin; Music Director: Jason Hansen; Scenic Design: Eli Sherlock; Costume Design: Rich Hamson; Lighting Design: Alice Trent Sound Design: Katherine Horowitz; Wigs, Hair and Makeup Design: Emma Gustafson; Props Design: Madelaine Foster; Intimacy Director: Allie St. John; Conductor: Sanford Moore; Associate Choreographer: Joey Miller; Assistant Director: Jay Own Eisenberg; Casting Supervisor: Sheena Jansen Kelley; Technical Director: Bethany Reinfeld; Stage Manager: Shelby Reddig; Stage Manager: Austin Schoenfelder.

Cast: Truman Bednar (Christian), Berto Borroto (Roy/Mark/Pte/Bobby/Jeremy), Shad Hanley (Bruce), Monty Hays (Medium Alison), Brock Heuring (John), Sara Masterson (Alison), Ann Michels (Helen), Eve Scharback (Small Alison), Emma Schuld (Joan).