Each winter, on the first snowy day of the year, I have a strict policy—I watch all two hours and 35 minutes of “Funny Girl.”
The 1968 film, which was adapted from the eponymous 1964 musical, has a special place in my heart. Somehow gaudy and earnest at the same time, it compels audiences to peel back the glitzy, distracting layers and search for more. Even from a young age, when most of its meaning flew over my head, “Funny Girl” was inexplicably important to me.
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So, when a touring musical revival was scheduled to make its way to the Orpheum Theatre, I naturally found my way to its opening night on Tuesday.
Among the show’s castmates were two Minnesota locals—Jackson Grove, who performs in the ensemble as the role of Tenor, and Bryan Charles Moore, who is the show’s dance captain as well as a swing cast member. To a home audience, both members were able to pay their theater roots proper tribute in the long-awaited revival.
“Growing up and training in Minnesota is a big part of why I have been so successful in my career,” Moore shared.
Photo by Matthew Murphy
Joining these locals were the show’s two stars, Maine-based Stephen Mark Lukas as Nick Arnstein and Miami-based Katerina McCrimmon as Fanny Brice. I commended McCrimmon before I heard her sing a note, because stepping into the role of Fanny Brice is brave. Not necessarily because it is technically difficult (although it is), but because its predecessor is, to put it lightly, a tough act to follow. The role of Fanny Brice was not just played by Barbra Streisand, it was made for Streisand. Tailored to her as if it were a custom-made gown, it was difficult for me to imagine anyone but Streisand portraying the klutzy, zany, indomitable Fanny Brice.
But McCrimmon rose to the challenge. Seamlessly employing Fanny’s trademark Yiddish accent and soaring through difficult numbers like “Don’t Rain on my Parade” with brassy, thundering vocals, McCrimmon did not miss a beat. Lukas followed suit with an admirable portrayal of Nick Arnstein, the success of which is easy to measure by how angry the audience feels toward the character by the end.
The story is actually loosely based on the life of the very real Fanny Brice, who was born in Manhattan to Hungarian and Alsatian immigrants in 1891. She found fame on the stage as a comedian, actress, and singer, and was a member of the 1921 Ziegfeld Follies. While she is known for a string of troubled marriages, “Funny Girl” focuses in on just one—her union with professional gambler and con artist, Nicky Arnstein.
At its core, “Funny Girl” is an exploration of the complicated relationship between love and ambition, which ultimately leads to Fanny’s melancholy acceptance that she cannot have both. Much like the film, the show followed Fanny through her complicated rise to fame, her whirlwind marriage to Nick, and their ultimate dissolution after he proves unwilling to live in her shadow.
The first half of the show was nearly identical to the film, save the swap out of the lulling “I’d Rather Be Blue” for the jazzier “Cornet Man,” as well as the addition of a much-welcomed tap performance by Izaiah Montaque Harris as Eddie Ryan. Even the costumes were vaguely similar, but I have to admit I may now prefer McCrimmon’s striking red and black tailored suit to the more subdued orange dress worn by Streisand during “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” A song which, notably, McCrimmon’s rendition of had audiences on their feet well before she had rung out the final note.
Photo by Evan Zimmerman
The second half of the show brought many more discrepancies from the film. As someone with no prior knowledge of the musical, I was mesmerized by “Who Are You Now?” and “The Music that Makes me Dance,” two numbers I couldn’t believe had been left behind by the film.
The duet between Fanny and Nick in “Who Are You Now” adds an extra layer of dimension to the struggling relationship, begging the question of whether the pair had changed each other for the better, or the worse.
The audience deserves at least one heartbreaking solo from Fanny Brice, with no glitz or glitter distracting from her big voice. “The Music That Makes Me Dance” was this. A steady build of a song with a big finish, which satisfyingly filled the void left by the show’s omission of “My Man.”
There was also something to the show’s addition of Nick’s melancholy “You’re a Funny Girl,” a number that offers a seamless transition into his breaking point—the phone call that leads to his ultimate arrest. It is a telling demonstration of his insecurity in the relationship, exposing his belief that a woman of Fanny’s wealth and success is “all wrong for a guy.”
The finale of the show is the most glaringly obvious departure from the film. An ending so alternate, it reinvents the entire theme of the story.
The film ends on an ellipses of sorts. Streisand in a fitted black dress, blending in with the black background so that all we can see is her tear-streaked face. Belting out the utterly hopeless chorus of “My Man,” a song which leaves audiences wondering if Fanny Brice will ever be her comedic, sparkly self again.
“For whatever my man is, I am his, forevermore,” Streisand sings. In this sense, Fanny renders herself as inseparable from the love she lost. And an ominous question hangs in the air as the curtains fall: Must a woman like Fanny Brice diminish her own success in order to be loved?
The production’s original composer, Jule Styne, was never a fan of the film’s finale swap-out, expressing that it made Fanny Brice seem “self-pitying, which is all wrong.” In his 1964 musical, as with the current revival, Fanny is just the opposite. And its finale is strikingly different. So much so, that it came as an initial shock to me, as I waited breathlessly in my seat for McCrimmon to emerge in a black dress and cry for us. Instead, she emerged center stage, effulgent and dry-eyed, costumed in a dazzling red dress of fringe. This was a different Fanny Brice.
photo by Corey Martineau
Self-pity is replaced with acceptance, and self-deprecation with a singular, clarifying affirmation—“I guess we didn’t make it/At least I didn’t fake it.”
No questions were left hanging in the air. And as McCrimmon belted a breathtaking reprise of “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” the narrative shifted. The stage lit up gold just before all went dark, framing her for one last time in its flashy, revelatory fanfare. And I could feel that, in this version of the story, Fanny Brice was going to be OK. That with or without Nick Arnstein, the show would go on.
