While the spirit of Shakespeare hovers over but does not smother the new off-Broadway musical, Fat Ham, the specter of Barbra Streisand haunts and suffocates the new Broadway Funny Girl. I was finally able to take in the first revival of the 1964 bio-tuner of legendary comic Fanny Brice after many delays due to COVID outbreaks among the cast. Despite tweaks by Harvey Fierstein to Isobel Lennart’s by-the-numbers, original book and a few fresh ideas from director Michael Mayer, Funny Girl remains a star vehicle requiring an outsized talent to drive it. Streisand was that kind of talent, surpassing the subject Brice in brilliance and versatility, and she became a supernova in film and music as a result, never returning to Broadway.
Beanie Feldstein is a fun, joyful young performer who rates an A for effort, but she is not a once-in-a-century talent like Streisand. Her voice is serviceable but not strong enough to ride the bucking bronco of an Act One closer like “Don’t Rain on My Parade” or extract all the emotion of “People.” Most of the comic bits feel forced, and the connection between her and Ramin Karimloo’s warm and virile Nick Arnstein is not strong enough to sustain the main plot arc of Fanny and Nick’s obsessive but ultimately doomed romance.
As noted, there are a few moments when the director and performers trust their own gifts and the show briefly shines. When Feldstein as a comically fake pregnant Brice in an elaborate Ziegfeld sequence, pushes a leggy chorine aside with “Get out of my way, Christine,” there are genuine laughs because it seems like a spontaneous quip. “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat” with Fannie as a cliched Jewish soldier festooned with bagels rather than bullets, is the only production number that entirely works. Feldstein cuts loose and actually has natural fun, the choreography by Ayodele Casel (tap) and Ellenore Scott is perfectly and effortlessly executed, and the schtick is hoary, but hilarious. Also, any time Jared Grimes as Eddie Ryan dances, he stops the show. But Eddie should not be the center of attention in Funny Girl.
Jane Lynch adds deadpan drollness as Fanny’s mother, Peter Francis James has dignity as Florenz Ziegfeld, and Beanie Feldstein deserves to headline a show where she is not expected to fill such gigantic shoes.
