(Above: Jared Grimes and Beanie Feldstein in Funny Girl. Photo by Matthew Murphy)
It was announced today that Lea Michele will be taking over the role of Fanny Brice from Beanie Feldstein in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl on September 6th after the latter had written over the weekend on Instagram that she was leaving the show early. That had been an open secret so I shrugged at the “news” that the producers are hoping will turn this revival of the show into more than the shrug it had become.
I had never seen Funny Girl until I recently saw the revival - and that means the movie as well. Back in the days of VCRs, I interviewed Barbra Streisand for a cover story in Vanity Fair and had the VCR of the film as part of my research but had no interest in watching it. I didn’t want the story I was writing about her to be a rehash and not watching it was a way to make me write about her from a different angle. I did talk to Jule Styne who wrote the show’s score to get his take on her and the show itself. He was instrumental in securing the role of Fanny Brice for Streisand after she submitted to seven grueling auditions, as I wrote at the time. She was only twenty years old, and the show's creators had been searching for a woman who could convincingly portray a mother in Act Two. They talked to Anne Bancroft, but she didn't like the idea of being called Fanny onstage. At one point Mary Martin was slated for the role; at another, Carol Burnett. It was the latter who advised Styne that someone with "her Jewishness born in her" was needed, and Streisand was finally given the coveted role that thirty years ago thrust her permanently into the cultural consciousness.
Styne: "Barbra's all about the work. After we cast her, I even flew to Las Vegas, where she had already been booked as the opening act for Liberace, and taught her the score between shows—that is, when I could drag her away from the gambling tables. When we were finally in rehearsals for Broadway—now, this was before the girl was a star, she was just this strange little creature who walked out at her first audition looking like a Russian Cossack —she had her manager write me a note telling me that there were two songs that she didn't like, 'People' and 'Don't Rain on My Parade.' She didn't think she wanted to sing them. I called her right up and said, 'Barbra, if you don't sing "People," you don't sing my score.' You've got to be straight with her. This reputation about being difficult comes from untalented people misunderstanding truly talented ones. Because she's so talented she had a tendency—maybe she still does—to show off a bit. She was always shoving shovelsful of her talent in your face. Jerry Robbins summed her up. He said she does everything wrong, but it comes out right."
It would be too easy to write at this point that Feldstein does everything right, but it comes out wrong. That is too glib. She got mostly unfavorable reviews and many of my friends did not like her in the role. I like being an outlier so I went into the theatre pulling for her - which rather works when watching a show about a performer one pulls for. I was pleasantly surprised. The show is about Fanny Brice not Barbra Streisand and so maybe Michele will make it work better in that regard since the scenario of her taking over the role from Feldstein will make the show about her.
No, Feldstein’s performance isn’t an earth-shattering, star-making one. It won’t thrust her into the cultural consciousness. But I don’t think Fanny Brice was such a star herself. So I just settled in to watch the performance and I was touched by it. “Touching” is not a term I would use for Streisand or Michele. Feldstein’s singing is lovely at times and compelling at others. And she and Ramin Karimloo, who plays Brice’s love interest, Nick Arnstein, made me believe in that relationship. Nick needed to feel he was a better person than the person he knew he was and falling for this little butterball made him feel that. I felt his need and I felt Fanny’s neediness in overlooking that need in him.
The production really comes alive when Jared Grimes as Eddie Ryan, Brice’s best friend, shows off his extraordinary tap dance skills. His is a thrilling talent and he got the show’s lone Tony nomination. I guess when a Black man tap-dancing in a musical about a Jewish woman singing is cited as the highlight then something is out of kilter.
It was also announced today that Tovah Feldshuh would be replacing Jane Lynch as Fanny’s mother. Back in 1975, Feldshuh appeared in the title role of Yentl in both the off-Broadway and Broadway productions. The play by Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer was based on Singer's short story “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy.” Streisand directed and starred in the musicalized film version of the Singer story in 1983. So the revival of Funny Girl is now becoming a kind of Streisand cholent. Instead of making it a newer dish they have just doubled-up on the one ingredient that it can’t escape. Long-limbed Lynch is doing her long-limbed schtick - lots of standing akimbo and throwing the lines out into house from the side of her mouth. The performance is more bank shot than rimshot. It is as if Nathan Lane were playing Micheal McKean. I had a hard time believing she gave birth to Feldstein but could believe maybe the little lump of flesh next to her had molted there.
From Streisand’s molten performance of Brice to sitting in the audience of this revival of Funny Girl making jokes to oneself about Fanny having molted from her mama is a kind of critical arc, I guess. But that is the problem that all productions of Funny Girl have to face: the. performance at the center of it will be one molted from Streisand’s. You just can’t give birth to a new one.
(Next up: reviews of MJ, Epiphany, Fat Ham, and Into the Woods)
I was fortunate enough to see Barbra in Funny Girl on Broadway; I was a teenager, but I remember everything! She was miraculous; a melding of character and performer that was stunning; and you're right: it can never be repeated (for Fanny). In your Vanity Fair piece I think you mentioned that Jule Styne told you that he'd never seen a musical comedy performance to top Barbra in Funny Girl. He was right. I hate to be corny (not really), but I'm one of the luckiest people in the world! (ps--please see the movie!).
Just as a piece, FUNNY GIRL is a rather pedestrian musical with a good score that includes a few truly great songs with lyrics by Bob Merrill, IMHO. Harvey Fierstein's tweaks to the book help a little. I haven't seen (and probably wouldn't see this revival), but I did see the London production with Sheridan Smith, who was more Brice than Streisand, which I appreciated. The 1968 film works so well because all those chorus numbers (HENRY STREET etc.) and small supporting roles are dropped in favor of closeups of the stars. You should watch it sometime (says the broken down old man in Portland).