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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PROGRAM

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PicksInSix Review: Big River - Mercury Theater Chicago

Mercury Delivers Powerfully Moving “Big River”
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy

The seven-time Tony Award-winning musical “Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is now playing in a bold and gritty revival at Mercury Theater Chicago, anchored by the engaging and exuberant performance of Eric Amundson, as the youthful homespun Huck, and a glass-shattering performance by Curtis Bannister as the freedom-longing slave, Jim.

Twain’s 1884 novel, on which the musical book by William Hauptman is based, recounts a coming-of-age story of a young man, desperate to escape an abusive father and a strict authoritarian foster family. Befriending an escaped slave, Huck serves as the narrator on a river adventure that winds its way through a study of race relations, slavery and prejudice in mid-19th century South. The topic is especially relevant these days considering that Twain’s depiction of racial injustice of the era has been banned regularly since it’s publication—despite being required reading in classroom’s throughout most of the 20th century.

Rarely produced regionally at the size and professional scope that director Christopher Chase Carter has so skillfully assembled in the intimate and historic Mercury Theater, “Big River” is stocked with seasoned Chicago talent and exceptional debut performers who together form a universally superb ensemble covering numerous roles. Revealing a true depiction of the underlying drama of the story amid Roger Miller’s highly entertaining and folksy score is the pivotal challenge that director Carter dispatches with a firm hand on the tiller, creating a stark landscape that exposes the racial insensitivity of the time. The no-holds-barred approach is intentionally difficult—we see slave families being ripped apart, chilling frontier justice and hear derogatory racial epithets—but Carter’s daring approach works, and the result is a powerfully moving experience.

The show begins as Huck is disciplined by his court-ordered guardians, the Widow Douglas (Colleen Perry), Miss Watson (McKinley Carter) and company in “Do Ya Wanna Go To Heaven?” Carter chooses to skip through the score earnestly without applause breaks to allow the numbers to coalesce with the story which moves things along from Huck’s fearful treatment at the hands of his drunken father “Pap” Finn (David Stobbe) in the quippy lyrics of “Guv’ment,” the blood pact that Huck, Tom Sawyer (Callan Roberts) and their cronies make in the spirited “The Boys,” Amundson’s silky sweet rendition of “Waitin’ for the Light to Shine” and Roberts letting it fly hog wild in “Hand for the Hog.”

When Huck decides to fake his death and steal away, he meets Jim who is about to escape on a raft. As the river adventure begins, Amundson and Bannister deliver the rousing anthem “Muddy Water.” Huck agrees to assuming “ownership” of Jim to protect him as the two seek to reunite Jim to his wife and children. But almost immediately, a despicable pair of con men—terrific turns for Stobbe as The King and Gabriel Fries as The Duke—lure Huck with promises of wealth in “When the Sun Goes Down in the South.” The two commandeer the raft to Bricktown, Arkansas, shackle Jim in isolation and Huck realizes that his new-found partners are bottom feeders, albeit comical ones. The pair then pose as brothers and heirs of a recently deceased resident and hatch a plan to take things over. When their plan runs aground, Huck and Mary Jane Wilkes (Amanda Handegan) devise Huck’s escape to Hillsboro where Jim has been sold back into slavery.  Handegan’s impressive debut performance includes two gorgeous numbers—“You Oughta be Here with Me” with her sisters Susan (Perry) and Joanna (Haley Jane Schafer) and “Leavin’s Not the Only Way to Go” with Bannister and Amundson who team up again for “World’s Apart.” The performance of the night belongs to Bannister who rocks the house with the soulful ballad “Free at Last.”

The rugged, multi-tiered, post and beam set draped in burlap is designed by Jacqueline and Richard Penrod and includes a central unit that adapts seamlessly with the story. The stage is awash with the auburn hues of Denise Karzcewski’s lighting and gorgeous period costumes by Marquecia Jordan, particularly in the funeral scene and “How Blest We Are” that showcases the talents of Isis Elizabeth (Alice’s Daughter), who I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of in the future. Music director Malcolm Ruhl, conductor Marques Stewart, and choreographer Ariel Etana Triunfo bring the legendary Miller’s beautiful, and only, theatrical score to vibrant life. “Big River” plays through June 11.  

PHOTO|Liz Lauren

Mercury Theater Chicago
presents
BIG RIVER
3745 N Southport Avenue
through June 11

WEBSITE

TICKETS

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