Despite the ominous noises sounding from above and outside the surroundings of the bleak (if magnificent by New York standards) apartment of ‘The Humans,’ it’s the plaintive cries of laughter and tears from the people within that gives this play its most terrifying clamor. While it is very much a New York tale, ‘The Humans’ is also a tale for all humanity. Set at a Thanksgiving dinner, it’s an unflinchingly stark look at one family under the eroding influence of time. Each of them seeks purpose and meaning in his or her own, often-troubled, way – and it’s to playwright Stephen Karam’s credit that they barely get any resolution.

Tension mounts as secrets are revealed, but this isn’t a pot-boiler. Rather it’s a look at the crushing and devastating toll time takes on a family, and what strange, frightening and terrifying creatures we are behind the safety of our make-shift homes. As secrets are revealed, the post 9/11 world of New York City tries to rebuild itself amid the wreckage of time that will not be stilled. The subsequent healing of a family finds difficult fruition in their increasingly-tenuous ties to each other. An aging grandparent, lost to dementia, further shows the relentlessness of time, as does the physical deterioration of the matriarch and the ongoing sickness of a daughter. No one is getting any younger here. Worse than that, even the youngest characters have their unspoken issues, told in omissions and conversations hidden from view.

There is a refreshingly touching take on the overly-sentimentalized notion of marriage, positing the idea that it’s an institution that can be the foundation that keeps everything – even a family on the verge of falling apart – together. That echoes with its own death-like knell, and as with many things happening here it’s an idea that is as poisonous as it is hopeful.

Despite a late-hour revelation, the love among the family is tangible – they even go so far as to sing together at one point. This is ensemble acting at its best – each actor so attuned to their character they know each and every move inside and out. That ease with one another becomes paramount as outside forces – and possibly other-worldly events – threaten with every bump in the night.

Under the masterful direction of Joe Mantello, the play works so well due in no small part to the excellent ensemble. Together, they manage to craft the vibrant beating heart of a family, even in the most doleful of surroundings. Written with a brittle and brutal eloquence, ‘The Humans’ is a dark, modern take on how our own family life can sometimes feel like a foreign land. As evening descends, and a brief glimpse of what may or not be a supernatural being or a neighbor hurries past, it’s difficult to tell who is more scared – the humans on the inside or whatever’s on the outside peering in. As each room goes dark, it illuminates just how alien-like we sometimes seem from a distance, and how reassuringly human too.

Last year’s Tony Award for Best Musical went to ‘Fun Home’ and on our latest trip to Broadway we finally got around to seeing it. Well-worth the wait, and the accolades, this was one amazing work of art. Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, this is not your typical Broadway musical, but don’t let that deter you. I resisted for so long because I just didn’t see how a musical of a closet-case suicide could be enjoyable on any level. Then, when I realized that the ‘Fun Home’ of the title was a shortening of ‘funeral home’ I thought there was no way they could make this work. I was wrong.

Against all odds, ‘Fun Home’ finds the humanity and, indeed, the fun, in the troubled lives of those captured in the superficially idyllic, antique-laden environs of Maple Avenue. But to call this a feel-good musical is simply not possible. If it soars, it’s because it seers. If it flies, it’s because so many of the characters have their wings clipped. Yet somehow it remains defiantly buoyant. The very weighty themes, and the inevitable collapse and destruction of this happy home, conspire to weave a tapestry of the human condition and the evolving culture of gay acceptance – but that doesn’t mean the proceedings are ever without love. It’s just that sometimes the love is harder to detect and feel when you’re hiding from the truth.

That masked duality finds frenetic form in the father figure who is at the tragic heart of this story. In his Tony-winning turn as the closeted Dad whose daughter also turns out to be gay, Michael Cerveris conveys anguish, hope, and elation within minutes of each other, and it’s a performance that manages to be as sinister and menacing as it is morbid and soulless. Is he bitter, resentful, or secretly glad that his daughter would live in a better world than him? Is he secretly envious of the life she has an opportunity to lead? Or is he simply relieved that his children might have a chance of belonging and being true to themselves in ways that he could only ever imagine?

His daughter Alison, seen at three stages, and equally mesmerizing in each, is the narrator looking back at the events of her family’s life and trying to make sense of it all. This is her story even more than it is her Dad’s, and as she pieces together the events of her childhood, it is with both anguish and acceptance as she begins to see the ways in which he was trapped.

Most moving is the way that art and beauty are used as balms and ways to forge and find forgiveness. Adult Alison talks in captions, befitting her illustrator dreams, trying to contain and align the past, making sense of memories, yearning to understand through retrospective observation and mindful re-creation. Our memories are not always ours alone; the mind blunts some areas while sharpening others, and sometimes that skews the truth.

That there is indeed fun to be found in this funeral home is rather a miracle in itself, and like the best moments in many of our lives, this fun is tempered with terrible tragedy and the changing times of our cultural history, when being yourself meant salvation for a daughter and death for a father. The way their story unfolds is difficult to watch, particularly if you know what’s coming, but it’s also affirming in its own way. Rather than preaching its message of tolerance and acceptance, it merely shows the opposite end of a time and era before it seemed possible. There is an incredible power in that, and the current cast more than ably translates that power into thrilling musical theater.