In “Fun Home,” which recently won the Tony Award for Best Musical, the young protagonist Alison sings “Ring of Keys,” expressing the wonder of discovering a kindred spirit when she spies a butch delivery woman enter a diner. Beth Malone, who plays an older version of the lead character in the show, had her own eureka moment when, at age 12, she snuck down from the balcony to the front row at a Barbara Mandrell concert in her native Colorado. The country singer picked her out of the crowd and rewarded her with a kiss. On the lips. “I floated home,” says Malone, recalling the event that would be a step on a dizzying and fraught path to a sexual identity at severe odds to the conservative western family in which she grew up. The arc of her awakening and its ramifications shares much with the journey of Alison Bechdel, the cartoonist whose tragi-comic memoir was adapted into the musical by playwright Lisa Kron and songwriter Jeanine Tesori.Although Malone didn’t grow up in a Pennsylvania funeral home with a father who was a gay esthete and who killed himself, the actor’s coming out was greeted in a similarly chilly manner. In fact, it was much worse. She and her father, Bill Malone, didn’t speak for seven years. But in the void came love and fulfillment in the person of Malone’s wife, Shelly Schoppert, which again parallels Alison’s yearning in the song, “I’m Changing My Major to Joan.”Years before “Fun Home” began its circuitous route to Broadway, Malone fashioned these personal tales of love, longing, and family angst into a smart and witty cabaret show, “Beth Malone So Far,” co-written with Patricia Cotter and directed by Peter Schneider. She is reprising the show at Joe’s Pub on August 31. Malone notes that it will be somewhat modified to take in the career leaps of the last few years, which include not only her Tony-nominated performance in “Fun Home,” but also her acclaimed performance last year in the title role of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” at the Denver Center, a production that is Broadway-bound. Malone, who made her Broadway debut in the 2006 Johnny Cash musical, “The Ring of Fire,” recently spoke with ARTINFO of the tenacity and grit which has brought her, at age 46, to this career peak after detours that included waitressing, bartending, and driving a forklift at a waste-recycling depot. How was it to be a part of a show that was so rigorously workshopped and perfected by Kron, Tesori, and [director] Sam Gold? They were sort of relentless. The attention to detail surrounding this piece is really kind of amazing. You couldn’t come in and have a relaxed day. You had to be at the top of your game constantly. You had to have your intellectual mind up and running and also your heart wide open.When it was down at the Public, you had all sorts of heavy hitters coming down and offering their opinion.They had lot of people bending their ear. But they stuck to their guns. Tony Kushner really wanted my part cut and he was very verbal about it to Jeanine. Until Jeanine had to say to him, “I hear you, I understand you feel that way. Now stop saying it because it’s not going to happen.” They felt strongly that they had to have this adult looking back, although it’s a very odd way to tell a story. I’m a watcher and a listener for a lot of it.Do you have to be both passionate and dispassionate because of that? Yeah. Purely emotional, and yet, the thing about Alison is that she can objectify herself and her family. “My dad was a fag. Cool.” “Oh, that’s going to be a cool thing to draw.” She has such an interesting relationship to the material. Only mildly unnerving at first, and then comes the moment when it starts to get under her skin.You grew up in a small Colorado town, Castle Rock, and your dad, Billy Malone, is this straight conservative engineer/cowboy. Could you nonetheless use your relationship with him? Yes I could because there are those moments in the show when she’s just someone’s little girl. When your dad does something charming to you, you feel like you are the center of the universe and you are totally in love with him. I remember one day, when I was five or six, I wrapped my little hand around my dad’s finger, this huge guy, and we skipped across the street. And he did it shamelessly to make me laugh and to be adorable to anyone who saw us.Who saw you? The whole town! Right there in front of the B&B Diner! I have those memories and that brings up all the complicated relationships you have with parents. Freud says you have to kill your parents to become an adult. The disillusionment is complete. But there isn’t a time when that little girl isn’t within you. Even Hillary Clinton was somebody’s little girl.Have your parents seen the show? No, not yet. It’s my own dread that keeps me from putting it in motion. It’s going to be so really, really hard for them to watch it because of the gay aspects. Girls kissing girls. But, hey, it’s about a whole lot more than just that. It’s been such a perfect amazing journey that I don’t want to be damaged by what they say. Take our appearance on the Seth Myers show. I know my mom saw it and yet no phone call, no comment, no nothing. And I’d love to have a conversation with them about what the show deals with but I know I can’t. It’s going to be an exercise in futility.Do you think that they’re capable of surprising you? That what Judy [Kuhn, who plays Alison’s mother] says. And I tell her, “Judy, it’s just going to hurt.” I know what’s going to happen, I’m old enough to have realistic expectations. It’s an amazing piece of theater but it’s still about lesbians.Don’t you think that a tipping point may have been reached with the progress on marriage equality and the Supreme Court decision? It’s historic, but as far as my parents are concerned it’s been a terrible year for them with Obamacare surviving and marriage equality. It’s the beginning of the end as far as they’re concerned. There are so many ways that I can’t have a conversation with [my father] and it’s horrible because there’s that guy I love underneath all of that and there’s a decent guy in there also. We agree not to discuss. He has such seething anger. He can’t help himself.And yet he’s provided such fodder for you. He’s central to “Beth Malone So Far.” It’s part of trying to understand it. Are you eager to show a different facet of yourself in the cabaret act? Oh, that I’m not just that strong butch woman? [Laughs] I’m an anomaly, a singular type of person. I’m not going to walk in, an unknown entity, and win a role. The only reason that I won “Molly Brown” is because of relationships. If I hadn’t known Jeanine Tesori, they would have been terrified at what I did at audition. “Well, she’s interesting but nobody knows her. We’re not going to spend $6 million finding out who she is.” But I had the “Fun Home” credit and Dick Scanlan [the writer] was Jeanine’s friend so I got the audition. But I had to fight my way because of the perception of who I was in “Fun Home.”Was there that much resistance? Like Molly Brown, you’re a Colorado girl. Oh, yeah. They thought, “She’s going to audition? Okay. But I don’t think so.” But I knew I had that part in my wheelhouse. I knew I could show them something that could make them go, “Oh let’s think about this.” The boat was going in this direction and they had to first stop the engines and then think about it and then turn the ship around, which wasn’t easy to do.After “Fun Home,” will Molly Brown be a comparatively less arduous challenge? I’ll be happy to pull back after this. [“Molly”] is so much fun to do. But I’ve learned so much on “Fun Home.” Three and a half years of acquiring the kind of acting skills required to do it. But I also have that classic musical theater leading lady bag of tricks. When that brass ring hangs down in front of your face, grab it and don’t let it go. And that means going home at night and working really, really hard.You’ve come a long way from driving a forklift in a waste-recycling depot. That’s true, I have. But I love that part of my life. That was so much fun. Who else gets to do that and gets to do what I’m doing now?
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