A Look Back: Funny Girl

The production of Funny Girl due on Broadway next year, the first in nearly 60 years, appears basically a revival of the successful London production of 2015 with the same director, Michael Meyer, and same revised book by Harvey Fierstein. It played first at the small Menier Chocolate Factory, where it was a complete sellout, and then moved to the West End for another half-year. Here are some thoughts from the former.

This is the first big-time revival of the show since its initial run in the mid 1960s, meaning anyone who saw it as a teenager then would now be retirement age. The first question on anyone’s mind is: who’s going to play Barbra? Streisand’s long shadow over the role makes casting extremely tricky; the aborted attempt at a revival a few years ago in the US was to star a Streisand impersonator from Glee, which would have been a disaster – why get a second-hand Barbra instead of a first-rate something else? The situation applies as well to London, where Streisand repeated her success after her sensational Broadway run and just before the hugely popular movie. While it’s true the show ran for a year-and-a-half on Broadway after Streisand left (with the wonderful Mimi Hines), that was before Barbra became a legend and diva nonpareil with the film, to the extent that many people think that the show and songs were written specifically for her (they weren’t). I don’t think even Fanny Brice herself could be cast these days. So when tickets for the revival by the estimable Menier Chocolate Factory went on sale, the entire run was snapped up within 90 minutes by audiences curious to see the original musical and the actress who dared take on La Barbra. The show was announced for a West End transfer before it even opened, which signals a lot of confidence on the part of the producers. . .

The actress who sparked all the excitement was Sheridan Smith, a blonde British shiksa who’s about as far from a Jewish Brooklyn girl as high tea from gefilte fish. Even given the impressive range in her career – her two Oliviers are for Legally Blonde and Terence Rattigan’s wartime-era Flare Path­ – this one seemed a stretch. Still, the word was good, and I was ready for anything.

Smith, who I was not familiar with at the time, proved terrific in every way, as I observed in detail. Beyond being a great singing actress, she has a vivacious personality and that elusive quality called stage presence (“thirty-six expressions don’t begin to cover it”). The show is built around a strong central performance – the Fanny Brice character appears in almost every number – and little else matters if that doesn’t work. Fortunately, it did:

The question: Is she another Streisand? Well, no, she’s Sheridan Smith, and thank goodness for that. She played the character, as opposed to Streisand playing Streisand (at least in the film).

Beanie Feldstein is another actress I don’t know much about, but she was fun in the recent Hello, Dolly! and hopefully will make the part her own without worrying too much about the Streisand effect. The main trouble with the show, as I noted, is that

the book is not up to the level of the performances. The biggest problem is the underwritten role of Nick. The show never establishes why this stud would fall for a young, up-and-coming and not-so-beautiful comedienne, whose working-class background is a world away from his champagne life. He’s at least one song short of being a well-rounded character – maybe they can borrow “I Met A Girl” from Bells Are Ringing. He’s more a device than an individual. The situation of a doomed marriage between an ugly duckling protagonist and her fabulous-looking failure of a mate was much better realized the other night in Beautiful. Actually, the message was a bit muddled here, as Fanny herself ignored the plain-looking guy who clearly adored her in order to go with the handsome Nick – so maybe her problems were karma. I thought that would be resolved somewhere along the way, but I guess there’s only so much they can do with a biography (though that didn’t stop them in Gypsy ­– wonder what Arthur Laurents, who was originally slated to write the show, would have done with this one). The book was hilarious overall despite flagging somewhat in the second act, but the lack of a credible love interest hurt badly since that was the main dilemma for both Fanny and the show.

As I pointed out, “I really wish Harvey Fierstein, who updated the book, had been more aggressive in tackling this problem; he seems to have done little more than added some gags.” That said, the book did offer one nice surprise, though it seems to have been part of the original show rather than Fierstein’s update:

One good point, and a big improvement over the movie, was the ending. Fanny first sings the title song (which suspiciously wasn’t on the original cast album), threatening to end the proceedings on a downer. Then she picks herself up and does a rousing and defiant reprise of “Don’t Rain On My Parade”. That’s more like it: it underlines the never-say-die spirit we’ve seen to now and rescued what could have become a maudlin tear-jerker.

Of course, there’s that wonderful score, not just the iconic songs but “the comic numbers and terrific ballads that weren’t even in the movie, above all the supreme ‘The Music That Makes Me Dance’”. I never quite understood why people who need people are lucky; shouldn’t that be people who are needed? In any case, it sings beautifully, which is all that really matters. On top of that, Michael Meyer’s production overall “made as good a case for the show as I could imagine”. For all the problems with the book,

it was great to see the show in this intimate space, especially with such stellar performances. While this is no great shakes as a musical, it’s a super-entertaining night at the theater.

Along with the Hugh Jackman The Music Man, this is the show I’m most likely to put on a mask for. Hoping the best for Beanie.