Review: FUNNY GIRL at Blumenthal Performing Arts

For nearly 60 years, FUNNY GIRL has been a Broadway musical in desperate need of fixing. With songs by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill like “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” there was enough musical merit for the show to stay afloat for a little while. Isobel Lennart's book was the lead weight that threatened to capsize the 1964 score. Attempting to tell two stories, Fanny Brice’s rise to showbiz fame and her doomed romance with Nick Arnstein, Lennart botched them both.

Luckily, director Garson Kanin and production supervisor Jerome Robbins found an already-blossoming Barbra Streisand for their lead. All the show’s problems were magically solved: with Streisand’s talent and charisma, the weakly-scripted musical now had strong legs. Strong enough for there to be a Hollywood version four years later, where Lennart could sharpen her storytelling, drop some of the original Styne songs, call for a couple of new ones – including a title tune – and commandeer a couple of songs that Fanny Brice actually sang.

What a concept! Can you imagine a bio-musical written nowadays that wouldn’t package the hits that made Frankie Valli, The Temptations, Janis Joplin, Elvis, Carole King, The Supremes, or Michael Jackson famous?

So the 2022 Broadway revival of FUNNY GIRL, now touring at Belk Theater, was really, really retro. Not only did it drop the two signature Brice songs added to the movie adaptation, “My Man” and “I’d Rather Be Blue Over You,” it also continued to shun Brice’s beloved “Second-Hand Rose,” a vaudeville hit that Streisand herself had been performing for over 50 years.

Now the eminent Harvey Fierstein was summoned to serve as a script doctor, but not to huge effect. There’s a new frame to the storyline that makes bookends of “Who Are You Now?” the song that only came late in Act 2 when Funny Girl premiered – and vanished from the 1968 film, replaced by the more affecting “My Man.”

So after all these decades when the most obvious void in Funny Girl could have been amply patched up and fixed, the show is now a curious relic, an updated replay of the vehicle that catapulted Streisand to superstardom rather than anything like an authentic homage to the fellow Brooklynite who rose to national fame and celebrity a generation earlier.

Was the goal in 2022 for Beanie Feldstein and, subsequently, Lea Michele to portray Fanny Brice? Or was the assignment to embody a youthful Barbra Streisand? Judging by the electrifying opening night performance by Katerina, I’d say director Michael Mayer’s compass is primarily pointed at Barbs, not Brice.

Even if the book still strays from the biography, we find that Brice, vaudeville, and the Ziegfeld Follies still dominate the ambiance. David Zinn’s set design, reminiscent of the old-timey Gentleman’s Guide to Murder, frames the action in an extra RKO proscenium, and Susan Hilferty’s costume designs remain devoutly old-school, whether she’s dressing Ziegfeld’s elegant chorines or she’s slumming with the kibitzers who schmooze and play poker in front of their Brooklyn tenements.

While McCrimmon belts every tune her larynx touches out of the park – and knows enough from Jewish to give her Fanny a slightly yiddishe ta’am – she doesn’t arrive with the name recognition of her Broadway counterparts. So the tour not only comes to us equipped with McCrimmon’s considerable verve and talent, we’re also favored with the presence of Melissa Manchester as Fanny’s mom, Rose Brice, a role that was juicy enough for Kay Medford to earn Tony Award and Oscar nominations back in the ‘60s.

Manchester’s poise, dignity, and zest help speed the early scenes off the runway even though we’re often grounded in Brooklyn – and the flight of “Who Taught Her Everything She Knows?” with tapdancing Eddie Ryan, formerly in Act 1, is now delayed until Act 2. Adorned with the tap choreography of Spoleto Festival favorite Ayodele Casel, Izaiah Montaque Harris as Eddie is a ray of sunshine every time the spotlight shines on him.

The other men are all top-notch. First heard as a disembodied voice of God at Fanny’s big audition, Walter Coppage’s awesome authority as Florenz Ziegfeld gradually melts upon further acquaintance to a stern, supportive, empathetic, and avuncular confidante. He remains a formidable and pragmatic Ziegfeld, one who will not partner with Arnstein in his latest get-rich scheme.

Stephen Mark Lukas has that Sky Masterson swagger about him as Nick, wicked enough to gamble and swindle for his livelihood but principled enough never to sponge off Fanny – until he does. Lucas doesn’t dance with the same robust confidence he sings with, but he executes a comical levitating move in his seduction scene with such suave insouciance that we forgive him.

Cranky, impish, and Irish, David Foley Jr. consistently delights as Tom Keeney, the two-bit revue entrepreneur who reluctantly recognizes Fanny’s talent before Ziegfeld whisks her away. Back in the neighborhood, Eileen T’Kaye and Christine Bunuan are Rose’s card-playing cronies, Mrs. Strakosh and Mrs. Meeker, T’Kaye freer to indulge in scene-stealing mischief.

Lighting designer Kevin Adams plays around with all the incandescent bulbs studding Zinn’s proscenium when music director Elaine Davidson and her 13-piece band (including seven locals) reach the climactic “Don’t Rain on My Parade” during the overture. That gives us a foreshadowing of the extravaganza awaiting us when McCrimmon will get her teeth into this scorching anthem to bring down the first act curtain. Milder eruptions accompanied “I’m the Greatest Star” with McCrimmon and Manchester and then “I Want to Be Seen With You,” the first love duet – itself a preamble to the more delicious “You Are Woman, I Am Man.”

Though the sound system wasn’t tweaked to the same perfection as MJ The Musical two weeks ago, there were no annoying glitches after one mic conked out early in Act 1. Audience enthusiasm was nearly as crazy, particularly when McCrimmon belted out her breathtaking “People.” Powerful, with plenty left in the tank.

Those footlights never did seem to come into play, but that’s showbiz. Second-hand or not, Blumenthal Performing Arts’ 2023-24 Broadway Lights Series is on a winning streak, with a pre-Broadway premiere of The Wiz waiting in the wings.

Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy

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