Alison Bechdel explores her family’s dysfunction in the musical 'Fun Home'.

Cartoonist Alison Bechdel was already ascending in the cultural zeitgeist for her long-running lesbian comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, and for the so-called “Bechdel test” of determining a narrative work’s fidelity to women’s perspectives – Hollywood scores depressingly low – when she released her 2006 graphic novel memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.

It went on to become a milestone in the medium, like Watchmen, Maus and Love & Rockets. In it, she explores her closeted gay father’s (not a spoiler) uneasy presence in her family, their odd mortuary business, and her own burgeoning queer identity. She won an Eisner and a MacArthur, and the graphic novel is an important work in the LGBTQ community. But for its brilliant exploration of family, it’s an important work, period.

It’s also sprawling with detail, heavy with sublimated emotions, and layered with literary allusions. The Tony-winning musical, first appearing in 2013 with music by Jeanine Tesori and lyrics by Lisa Kron, is lively, emotional and inventive.

Alison is portrayed in three versions of herself in the play, currently running at PacRep. Small Alison, at age 10, is played by Colette Gsell (alternately played by Lily Bunch). Medium Alison, the college freshman, is played by Sylvie Pratt. And the 43-year-old Alison, who is drawing, writing and narrating the story we’re witnessing, is played by River Navaille.

Navaille has the advantage of actually looking like Alison Bechdel: lanky, cropped hair, androgynous. Navaille has the tricky task of being near the action on stage, which is Alison’s own recollection, but not being in it. Like a host. She often takes a back seat, scribbling at her drafting table or peaking over her younger self’s shoulder to read us her diary.

Navaille lets emotions flit across Alison’s face, abetted by bird-like reflexes like she’s exploring her family from multiple angles to better see them. She narrates the musical with an homage to the graphic novel. “Caption: My dad and I grew up in the same Pennsylvania town. He was gay. And I was gay.”

Her foil is her father Bruce, played by Adam J. Saucedo. Saucedo doesn’t look like Bruce from the graphic novel and that’s not a problem. But Saucedo’s Bruce is more doting and gregarious than graphic novel Bruce. Without the occasional outbursts of fury or the sometimes indiscreet dalliances with young men, musical Bruce seems like an alright dad. In the book, he’s portrayed as emotionally aloof and absent, which is one of the main engines of the source story – Alison’s yearning for his paternal affection, for his affirmation, for his true self.

Whenever Pratt’s “Medium Alison” is activated it’s a thrill because it seems like Pratt can do anything that’s required, from subtle to complex to bursting emotions. She slips wholly into Alison’s fear and excitement of coming out, and discovering love (or at least sex) in “Changing My Major to Joan.”

“Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God! Last night!” Pratt exclaims like she’s surprised and delighted the hell out of herself. She flares with talent.

The writing sparkles. It can tickle, but it can wallop too. The timelines jump around, but you can follow. The costumes are just right for its 1970s-’80s setting.

The PacRep production throws up occasional projections of the graphic novel’s panels. Some are distorted (squished) and some appear without obvious relation to the action. But it’s a smart way to give the book a shout-out while adding dimension to the sparse set. The backdrop of the iconic house is oddly plain in this production; ornate decor thoroughly defines it in the graphic novel.

The music manages sentimentality, irony and anguish within the confines of “Broadway musical,” here done by Don Dally on violin and guitar, and George Petersen on keyboard, conjuring the arty palette of Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

“Maps” is a brilliant song about drawing while also being about memory, sounding like Tori Amos or Fiona Apple. “Raincoat of Love” sounds like a ’60s pop group on its refrain “Everything’s alright!” even though it certainly isn’t.

Alison’s two brothers are played as children by girls, and they have fun with an adorable, dark, Motown-inspired song-and-dance about the family’s titular funeral home, “Come to the Fun Home.”

Helen Bechdel, Alison’s mom, is played by Jennifer L. Newman as a frayed and brittle woman who’s asking less and less of her marriage, but hasn’t quite given up. Small Alison, Gsell, has shiny moments of precociousness and poignance, like in the infatuation of “Ring of Keys.” Michael Blackburn juggles pride, mischief and innocence in his multiple roles as Bruce’s various male pursuits.

There are some profound sentiments surging through this work, carried aloft on bright musical notes. Fun Home is a carousel of funny, thorny, literate, sad, soaring, painful and revelatory. It’s also powerfully nostalgic in the ancient Greek etymology, meaning the ache of returning home. But Bechdeltakes us there with such artistry that it becomes something else, a bittersweet and redemptive pageant to the inevitable power of home, of childhood, of family.

FUN HOME runs 7:30pm Thu-Sat, 2pm Sun (Feb. 15-March 4; talk-back sessions with cast and LGBTQIA speakers follow performances Feb. 18 and 25) at Golden Bough Theatre, Monte Verde between Eighth and Ninth, Carmel. $14-$44. 622-0100, pacrep.org