It took 60 years until the Jule Stein/Bob Merrill/Isobel Lennart musical Funny Girl (1964) was revived on Broadway.
The consensus among theater mavens declared that no one could ever replace iconic Barbra Streisand, who wowed Broadway with her incandescent star wattage and that emotive ethereal voice. Not since Merman and Garland had there been such a voice. She was the true thing. But La Streisand didn’t want to be a Broadway star, she wanted to be a Movie Star. And that’s exactly what she became. When the part in William Wyler’s 1968 film musical was offered, she never looked back and never appeared in another Broadway show. The rest is history.
With a new book by Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy, Newsies, Kinky Boots) adapted from Lennart’s original, and songs added from those discarded during out-of-town tryouts, the musical had been greeted on London’s East End in 2015 with great acclaim. The lure of Broadway was too seductive to ignore, and this version opened on the Great White Way in 2022. It didn’t go well. Beanie Feldstein, as Fanny Brice, was generally panned, and was replaced with Julie Benko and eventually Lea Michele, who received glowing reviews and helped the floundering production recoup its investment.
When the revival closed in 2023, it was only natural that a national tour would follow. This it what is on the boards at the Hobby Center.
Pared down just a bit in production values, the show still hasn’t found the right balance between the backstage story of Fanny Brice’s rise to stardom as a Ziegfeld Follies headliner and the on-again, off-again romance with gambler and con man Nick Arnstein, who would serve time in prison for fraud, debt, and shady underworld shenanigans. He’s a cipher.
Stephen Mark Lukas can certainly turn anyone’s head with his matinee idol looks, but his singing is a bit under powered and his dancing even less so. Why give him a tepid number such as “Temporary Arrangement” (added back into the film and subsequent productions after being dropped from previews because it slowed down the pace), and surround him with ensemble men who gyrate and slither while he attempts some slow-motion dance steps. It stops the show cold and doesn’t show him off at all to his advantage.
His comedy timing is spot-on, though, and he shines in the hotel seduction scene. On the divan he makes a pass at Fanny, she moves away quickly, he falls to the floor, and while her back is turned for a second, plops himself back on the couch into the perfect pose of a lounge lizard, cool and collected.
But it’s Katerina McCrimmon who raises this show past any of its limitations. She is a wonder. With vaudeville timing and plenty of Borscht Belt, she whizzes through the role and knocks one silly. The voice oftentimes parodies Streisand, and there are certain phrases or a vibrato catch in the throat that is eerily exact.
But she adds her own sheen to Brice and stops the show with her anthem “Don’t Rain On My Parade” or the Helen Morgan-like torch song “The Music That Makes Me Dance.” She transforms and knits the loose ends of the show into a satisfying whole. She grabs the spotlight and doesn’t let go. As she belts her wanting song, “I’m The Greatest Star,” the next line belies what we witness, “I am by far, but no one knows it.” We all know it now.
Grammy-winner singer/composer Melissa Manchester is unrecognizable as wise smart-ass Mrs. Brice. Her willowy ‘70s voice has mellowed and deepened, but she’s still got it. Who’s also got it is Izaiah Montaque Harris as hoofer Eddie Ryan, Brice’s friend from the Henry Street tenement who rises with her in the Follies. Whenever he taps – and he taps a lot – the show bursts into fireworks. Shades of the Nicholas Brothers rolled into one. Superb.
Even minimally updated by Fierstein, Funny Girl remains a lovely relic from the past. What you would call “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.” There’s a brassy overture, a proscenium arch ringed with marquee lights that have a life of their own, simple but elegant set design, impeccable Necco wafer-colored costumes, even a drop curtain so the next scene can be readied. It moves swiftly, if predictably, and the hit songs from the show are now standards in the Great American Songbook.
Ironically, its greatest hit, “People,” was almost dropped from the original. Bob Fosse, one of many stage wizards who worked on-and-off the original (Jerome Robbins was another), thought it inappropriate that someone like Brice who always was surrounded by people would sing a song about her need for people. He convinced nearly everybody except wily composer Stein. He was adamant. He knew a great song when he heard it, especially his own.
The song stays whether it works in character or mood or not, he shouted during rehearsals, because it’s going to be the biggest f-ing hit in the show! He was right. Streisand had recorded the song months before the premiere and it had appeared on Billboard’s Top-40 charts. It was Streisand’s first hit. By the time of Funny Girl’s opening, when the audience heard a snippet of it during the overture, they burst into applause.
Funny Girl continues through August 25 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday matinee; 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-2525 or visit thehobbycenter.org. $35-$190.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
