FUN HOME

Fun Home tells the story of Alison Bechdel’s life through her own eyes. She relives moments of family dysfunction, drawing her first comics, discovering her sexuality, and times spent with her father, who was a closeted gay man and committed suicide only months after she came out as a lesbian. Left to wonder what happened and why, Alison feels unable to move on in her own life without getting closure from her complicated past. This process of revisiting her past allows her to gain clarity and make peace with her memories. The audience should be left thinking about how to accept the complexities of their own family relationships and the importance of making peace with the past in order to move forward. 

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My goal for the set was to create a physical representation of the memories that Alison is combing through throughout the play. I thought of a cardboard box as being the container for her memories, full of objects that are representative of each memory. At the top of the show, it is cluttered and overwhelming, a looming pile of memories left to gather dust. Throughout the show, as she unpacks and excavates her memories, the space becomes clearer and more organized, as she creates order from chaos by reliving those difficult memories. By the end of the show, Alison has made peace with her past and it no longer weighs her down with worry, guilt, and regret like it used to. Her memories are still present, but the baggage and clutter that once clouded them is gone.