PicksInSix Review: Fun Home - Porchlight Music Theatre

“A Raincoat Made Out of Love.”
PicksInSix Review | Ed Tracy

Porchlight Music Theatre is celebrating their 30th Anniversary with an exhilarating revival of the 2015 Tony award-winning musical “Fun Home,” based on cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s 2006 groundbreaking graphic memoir, now playing at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts.

Directed by Stephen Schellhardt with music direction by Heidi Joosten, the show stars Alanna Chavez as Alison, Patrick Byrnes as Bruce and Neala Barron as Helen who lead a stellar cast in bringing the moving Lisa Kron/Jeanine Tesori score to life.

Kron’s book follows Bechdel’s conflicted relationship with her gay father as she discovers and comes to terms with her own lesbian sexuality. Chavez’s Alison serves as a 43-year-old stage voyeur looking back on her life growing up in the family funeral home, her sexual awakening in college and facing the inevitable truth of her father’s destructive behavior, all the while capturing the drama in her artwork. Moving in and out of the scenes with versions of herself as a child—alternating roles for Tess Mae Pundsack and Meena Sood as young Alison and Z Mowry as Middle Alison—Chavez expertly navigates the transitions, never leaving the stage for the entire 100 minute runtime of the piece.

Byrnes is a commanding force as Bruce, sheltering his true nature behind the veil of dutiful teacher, husband, father and community mortician while fighting to control an inner rage that will ultimately tear the family apart. Early on, his efforts to shield Alison and her siblings—Eli Vander Griend and Charlie Long alternating as Christian, and Austin Hartung and Hayes McCracken alternating as John—plays out as a domineering perfectionist but not without a sensitivity to literature, art, culture and a flair for restoration projects like the funeral parlor coined the ‘Fun Home’ by his children.

As Bruce’s anguished wife Helen, Barron gives an outstanding, multi-layered performance culminating in the heart-stopping ballad “Days and Days.” Among the other memorable numbers in the melodic score are the musical commercial “Come to the Fun Home” delightfully showcasing the young talent; Mowry’s “Changing My Major,” the touching anthem to her lover Joan (Dakota Hughes); the poignant “Ring of Keys” duet; and Byrnes “Edges of the World.” Lincoln J. Skoien rounds out the cast playing multiple roles and leads the lively company number “Raincoat of Love.”

Scenic designer Jonathan Berg-Einhorn has transformed the Ruth Page stage into an exquisite and intimate multi-level interior that allows Schellhardt the ability to transition effortlessly between scenes. Denise Karczewski’s lighting design and costumes by Marquecia Jordan complete the visually stunning production. With Matthew R. Chase’s pitch-perfect sound design and Joosten’s five-piece band hitting the right notes all night long, Porchlight’s memorable “Fun Home” is not to be missed.

PHOTO|Liz Lauren

Editor’s Note: Longtime photographer Rich Hein, who published his work as Liz Lauren, passed away on Sunday, January 19. 2025. Rich’s matchless photographic contributions will be sorely missed by the entire Chicago theatre community. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends. and colleagues. et

Porchlight Music Theatre
presents
FUN HOME
Ruth Page Center
1016 N. Dearborn St.
through March 2, 2025

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PicksInSix Review: The Secret Garden - Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre

Outstanding Performances Seed Theo’s ‘Secret Garden’
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Ronald Keaton

It’s a famous children’s story that ends up, in this reincarnation, being the most adult tale in the room—and it works in both realms.  The Francis Hodgson Burnett 1911 novel “The Secret Garden,” presented by the always ambitious Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre as its annual holiday offering through December 22, tells the tale of Mary Lennox, a girl doing her best to stifle her grief through her own entitlement, while simultaneously searching for her self-worth at a Yorkshire estate full of colorful gardens, one of which is locked away, kept in secret, while also holding surprises of its own.

Mary (a complicated role in this guise that Joryhebel Ginorio handles with great aplomb and intelligence) is orphaned because of a cholera pandemic in India that took the lives of her parents and her guardian. She has been sent to England to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven (Will Koski offers articulate, clear choices with a handsome, tight tenor voice to boot), who is mourning himself the death of his wife Lily—seen and heard in ghostly form, as others are in this musical, by the graceful presence and voice of Brennan Martinez. Now Mary is very entitled, it seems, but the arc of this attitude is not given very much shrift, thanks to the fabulous Dakota Hughes as Martha, a chambermaid who exerts much influence and calm on Mary, all the while showing her own excitement in life.

The parade of characters, all with varying degrees of influence, include: Martha’s brother Dickon (an easy, accessible Lincoln J. Skoien), who actually tells Mary of a ‘secret garden’ to explore; Ben (a folksy turn by Bill Chamberlain), a gardener who keeps his word to Lily to tend the estate gardens after her passing; Mrs. Medlock (Kathleen Puls Andrade, properly conservative and authoritarian), who meets Mary first and takes her to her new home; Colin (an honestly thankless role given fine depth and nuance by Kailey Azure Green), whose health diagnosis keeps the lad bedridden for a major part of the story; Rose (with Rachel Guth’s lovely singing voice), Lily’s ghostly sister; and Dr. Neville Craven (Jeffrey Charles makes him more human than the character deserves), the nemesis here who has kept Colin in bed for most of his life.

A word should be said about this adaptation. People who know Brunett’s beloved book are aware, as they watch the progress of the musical, that Dr. Craven has been elevated to the status of villain and given more strength in the plot by original bookwriter/lyricist Marsha Norman, so some of his influence and characterization are a bit contrived in its expansion to help make such a choice work. Same with the fact that the story’s conclusion is not just Mary’s story, but Colin’s as well—and how the ‘secret garden’ actually might contain its own healing magic.

But that’s why adaptations are of varying degree. And the choices made do indeed allow truly fine musical moments to occur; the duet between Neville and Archibald about “Lily’s Eyes” is a great sight and sound to behold between Mr. Koski and Mr. Charles. Martha’s solo “If I Had A Fine White House” is energetic and fascinating, as shared by Dakota Hughes. In fact, the entire Lucy Simon score is offered in a mature, charming guise by music director Carolyn Brady and her charges.  And this chorus… outstanding. Wow!

Director Christopher Pazdernik requires praise here, too. The Theo space is simply a flat stage that needs lots of filling. And it’s been done admirably. There are six or so tables with four seats at each table, all enveloped in the walled seating that the space has available. But Mx. Pazdernik, a literal expert in musical theatre story and history, weaves the cast in and out of the seating area with small set pieces and literal lit areas for the ‘invisible’ chorus to inhabit. It’s pretty imaginative and strong. The minimalist set pieces from scenic designer Rose Johnson are a fine corollary. Levi J. Wilkins offers constant atmospheric lighting to proper and spirited effect for Lucy Elkin’s rich costumes. “The Secret Garden” is a surprisingly difficult story to tell, even with today’s sensibilities and maturity. But at Theo, it has earned a respect as a marvelous holiday offering.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | RONALD KEATON received an Equity Jeff Award for the performance of his one-man show CHURCHILL. www.solochicagotheatre.com  Coming soon, his new solo play “Echo Holler.” www.echoholler.com

PHOTO|Time Stops Photography

Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre
presents
The Secret Garden
721 Howard Street
Evanston, IL
through December 22, 2024

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