Review: FUNNY GIRL at Kansas City Music Hall

FUNNY GIRL is one of the crown gems of the American Musical Theater. Kansas City audiences will be treated to a first-class production of a show that many theater buffs know about but have never seen.

Tuesday night’s performance starred Leah Platt in the lead role of Fanny Brice. Leah has a gangbuster voice fully displayed as she plows through an excellent score with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Merrill.

Depending on when you see the show, you may see Hannah Shankman in the lead role of Fanny.  Hannah’s “Don’t Rain On My Parade” is available on You Tube.

Included are standards “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” “People,” “I’m The Greatest Star,” “If A Girl Isn’t Pretty,” Cornet Man,” “I Want To Be Seen With You,” “Who Taught Her Everything She Knows,” and ”The Music That Makes Me Dance.”

FUNNY GIRL is the show that made Barbra Streisand a star in 1964.  It is the story of early twentieth century comedienne Fanny Brice.  Fanny was the comic relief for about ten years at the storied Ziegfeld Follies and on radio through the 1940s. 

The reason so many theater fans have not seen FUNNY GIRL on stage is because Barbra Streisand so overshadowed the real-life Fanny character that she uniquely owned the part.  The 1968 film version further cemented Queen Barbra’s image as Fanny and her lock on the role.  No producer has dared to revive the original production on stage for fifty-eight years.  A revival finally played Broadway in 2022.

FUNNY GIRL is a blockbuster part for any excellent actress.  Leah Platt is really good as Fanny.  The part can best be compared to Momma Rose in GYPSY in the Musical Theater canon.  In other words, this is Fanny’s show.

After more than a half century, producers believed that audience tastes had shifted a bit.  A new version required a new libretto.  Gravel-voiced Harvey Fierstein, a multi-Tony award winning actor and playwright was commissioned to provide the update.

FUNNY GIRL features four significant actors in addition to Fanny.  Each are exceptionally good in this case.  They are Fanny’s Husband Nick Arnstein (Stephen Mark Lucas), Fanny’s friend and dancing teacher Eddie Ryan (Izaiah Montaque Harris), Fanny’s Momma Rose (Melissa Manchester), and Florenz Ziegfeld (Kansas City based actor Walter Coppage).

FUNNY GIRL is a much buffed and polished episode in the life of actress Fanny Brice.  Brice was a popular performer on stage and on radio programs up through the 1940s.  Brice died at age 59 in 1951. 

Fierstein’s new libretto shuffles many of the pieces parts of the original show and significantly expands the two male leads Nick and Eddie.  

Eddie Ryan is, for the first time, played by an African American actor.  He is a tap choreographer and Fanny’s close friend.  We suspect that Eddie has a long running romantic crush on Fanny.  In any event, Eddie is always there for her. Izaiah Harris is a super tap dancer, a more than capable singer, and a good actor. His part is significantly expanded.  It is difficult to tell if Eddie ever had been a living person.

Nick Arnstein (Stephen Mark Lukas) is Fanny’s husband and the fallen angel of the piece.  As a character, Nicky is the biggest beneficiary of Harvey Fierstein’s new libretto.  Much of the new and expanded second act is devoted to humanizing and fleshing out Nick.  Stephen Lukas is the one obvious survivor of the Broadway run.  He understudied Ramin Karimloo in the part and ultimately replaced him when the former Phantom of the Opera and former Jean Valjean was unavailable due to other commitments. Stephen Lukas is a straight-on, presentational, exceptional, Baritone leading man type.

The original production of FUNNY GIRL appears to have languished in development purgatory for a number of years. Shortly after Fanny Brice’s death in 1951, film producer Ray Stark commissioned an authorized biography based on tape recordings made by Brice. 

Ray Stark was married to Frances Brice Arnstein, one of Fanny’s two children with Nick. Frances was keen to have her mother’s story told but only if the rough edges had been polished away.  And in the real world there were plenty of rough edges. 

Dozens of the talented and famous were involved in some way in the process.  They included Mary Martin, Ben Hecht, Anne Bancroft, Eydie Gorme, Carol Burnett. Bob Fosse, even Stephen Sondheim, and Jerome Robbins.  Robbins saw a young Barbra Streisand at the Bon Soir club in Greenwich Village and knew he had discovered a star. 

Nick Arnstein was a legitimate riverboat (in this case ocean liner) gambler.  He served at least two prison terms, one in Sing Sing and one right up the road at Leavenworth.  In addition to being a gambler, he was into women, horses, wiretaps, con games, and bond schemes. 

Nick was already married when he moved in with Fanny and Rose in 1916.  His first wife divorced him a week prior to his marriage to Fanny three years later. 

Fanny also divorced Nick after about ten years of wedded bliss for similar behavior on his part and after giving bith to two children. Nick somehow married upward again and ended up living in a Pasadena California mansion until his death in 1965.

Regardless of Nick and Fanny’s real-life blemishes, interference by daughter Frances, and numerous false starts during out-of-town tryouts, FUNNY GIRL is an outstanding musical play with an outstanding cast.

The production continues through December 8 at the Kansas City Music Hall. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster or at the theater box office.

Photos by Mathew Murphy

To post a comment, you must register and login.