In Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home, Alison’s mother is consumed by theatrical performances and the lines that she must learn to prepare for these plays. The way that she immerses herself in performance is evocative of her life as a whole; she lives with a husband who is very concerned with outward appearance and concerned very little with their family’s internal health and normalcy
Performance is a very prominent theme in Bechdel’s novel, and her mother’s obsession with performance is particularly interesting due to the fact that most things in her life appear to be different than what they truly are. For example, her husband is a closet homosexual who maintains their relationship to keep up a flawless exterior while their family life is crumbling beneath them. Alison’s mother is forced to be part of a lifeless marriage in order to keep the appearance of normalcy as a part of a prominent business in a small town, and also as a family in a town that few Bechdels have left from. Alison states that her mother “in even the most routine activities…held to exacting standards.” (163) In a play, all characters are disguised; it is impossible, from the audience’s perspective, to know anything about the actors who are playing the character roles. The only people who know anything about the actors themselves are other actors partaking in this same performance. They rehearse and memorize lines with which to convince the audience to believe them as actors, to have the audience be unable to separate actor from character. It is the same way in Alison’s household; her parents are still married despite knowing that they are not right for each other besides having the ability to maintain a false façade. It is obvious that Alison’s mother knows that her husband is homosexual, but she performs the role of a wife because it holds her family together and helps them maintain a sense of normalcy, at least knowing that other people consider them to be normal even if they are not. One factor of Alison’s mother’s obsession with performance is that it is how she lives her life daily, performing the role of wife and mother of an average family when their own family dynamics are far from average.
Another factor of Alison’s mother’s obsession with performance is revealed with Alison states that her mother “learned everyone else’s lines along with her own.” (163) She also “worked on her own costumes.” (164) These activities make it clear that Alison’s mother is used to being self-sufficient and looking out for herself as a woman and as a person living a false life. She is afraid to forget her lines on stage and reveal her identity as a mere actor instead of a believable character. Alison informs us that she was “terrified of going blank onstage” (163) when audience members are casting judgment upon the heads of actors on the stage. Her mother is so concerned with learning her lines correctly that she never said her lines incorrectly or forgot them, not even once. This reveals two things, her mother’s acting experience (in life and onstage) and her self-sufficiency due to her knowledge that she has to protect herself from being found out as a woman who lived in a dead marriage with a homosexual man who had been having affairs with other men. Alison’s mother is terrified of shattering the façade that she and her husband have built up, and although it may have been him who instigated the need for a façade, she knows that for her family’s sake, for her children’s sake and for reputation’s sake, she has to perform well, and she takes her role very seriously.
Alison’s mother is very concerned with performance, like her husband, but her performance is one of maintenance rather than the establishment of a false identity. She is swept, like a Henry James character, into a life of lies that she and her children have to live with. Her onstage performance is an activity highly related to the way that she has to live her life daily to maintain her reputation and at least the visual integrity of their family structure.
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