Family

Family

What Does an American Family Look Like? Family may be Broadway's most persistent historical subject. But the family Broadway places onstage has changed dramatically. In Fiddler on the Roof, family is inseparable from tradition. Tevye's daughters increasingly challenge the marriage customs that structured earlier generations. In The Sound of Music, family becomes a refuge against political authoritarianism. In Gypsy, family and ambition become dangerously intertwined.

In Fun Home, family memory becomes fragmented and uncertain as Alison Bechdel tries to understand her father, her sexuality, and her childhood. In Next to Normal, the idealized suburban family is dismantled by grief and psychological suffering. And in Kimberly Akimbo, family is simultaneously absurd, dysfunctional, frustrating, and necessary. Across these musicals, Broadway records a larger cultural shift. The family moves from something society defines for the individual toward something individuals increasingly question, reconstruct, and sometimes choose for themselves.

That is the sentence I would defend. Not that families on Broadway became “more diverse,” but that the family stopped being scenery and became a problem. Once Tevye’s daughters can refuse, the form has to keep asking what holds people together when custom no longer will.