Katerina McCrimmon and Izaiah Montaque Harris in FUNNY GIRL. Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade
– By Cate Marquis –
“Funny Girl,” the hit revival of the Broadway hit musical about legendary Broadway comedy star Fanny Brice, the role that made Barbara Streisand a star, hit the Fabulous Fox Theater stage on Jan. 23 for a run through Feb. 4. That’s a triple hit – no, make that four in a row, as this show also features a rising Broadway star, Katerina McCrimmon as funny girl Fanny Brice, and McCrimmon’s big voice and appealing stage presence beamed out into the Fox, charming and warming the audience despite chilly weather.
Most people, particularly Streisand fans, know “Funny Girl” from the movie version rather than the 1964 musical, and so might be surprised that the show’s score they hear at the Fox is different from the one in the film. But the stage musical’s score was always different, as the movie added in some songs from Streisand albums and dropped some other numbers, likely to make room for the new ones. Still present are familiar favorites like “People,” “Sadie Sadie,” “If a Girl Isn’t Pretty,” “You Are Woman, I Am Man,” and the rousing “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” but songs like “Second Hand Rose” and “My Man” are absent, as they were when the show was on Broadway the first time.
This current revival has a few songs changes and the book as been revised a bit by the legendary Harvey Fierstein, but the story is generally the same. The semi-biographical musical is based the life of Fanny Brice, a Jewish comedian/singer who broke through to become a big Broadway star in the early 20th century, and her difficult relationship with her husband Nicky Arnstein, a gambler and wheeler-dealer entrepreneur. Fanny Brice still would have been a familiar name to audiences in the 1960s when the stage musical debuted.
Current audiences are more likely to know “Funny Girl” because of Streisand, who played Fanny in the Broadway musical, with Sydney Chaplin (the son of silent comedian Charlie Chaplin) as Nicky Arnstein, and then repriced her lead role in the movie, with Omar Sharif as Nicky. The movie coincided with Streisand’s singing career taking off. That all adds up to “Funny Girl” being forever linked with Streisand, especially for her fans.
The show opens in 1924, with the famous Fanny Brice (Katerina McCrimmon) in her dressing room backstage at the New Amsterdam Theater where her latest hit show is running, waiting for the return of her husband Nicky Arnstein (Stephen Mark Lukas). While she waits, we flash back to an earlier time when Fanny was an ambitious teenager in New York’s Lower East Side, where she lives with her mother Mrs. Brice (Barbara Tirrell), surrounded by neighbors Mrs. Strakosh (Eileen T’Kaye) and Mrs. Meeker (Christine Bunuan), while dreaming of Broadway.
Young Fanny’s confidence in her talent comes through her song “I’m the Greatest Star,” but the neighbor ladies’ doubts then come out in their song “If a Girl Isn’t Pretty,” pointing out that she is no beauty queen, while her mother argues back that her daughter has “golden talents.” Despite all that, Fanny’s tap dancer friend Eddie (Izaiah Montaque Harris) gets her an audition at Tom Keeney’s (David Foley Jr.) local vaudeville theater.
Eddie’s tap dancing impresses both Keeney – and Izaiah Montaque Harris’ dazzling dancing delighted the Fox audience who responded with rousing applause. But theater owner Keeney doesn’t get Fanny’s humor, playing a clumsy girl disrupting a dance number. Yet her persistence gets her a second chance in front of audience where her singing talents combine with her humor to delight the audience and win her a spot in the show. After the show, a handsome, dapper man in a ruffled shirt comes back stage to complement her, and also quickly uses his skill at bluffing to get her a higher salary for her new job. His name: Nicky Arnstein (Stephen Mark Lukas). Hello, gorgeous.
The musical then follows Fanny Brice’s rocketing rise as a musical comedy star, while Nicky pops back into her life from time to time. She quickly draws the attention of Broadway’s biggest impresario, Florenz Ziegfeld (Walter Coppage), whose Ziegfeld Follies’ shows feature a bevy of beauties known as Ziegfeld Girls. Fanny’s no Ziegfeld showgirl but her talents win her a comic solo number in the Follies, which makes room in this musical for some show-within-a-show numbers, including the Follies finale “His Love Makes Me Beautiful” where Fanny surprises Ziegfeld with a risque comic turn that leaves the audience roaring with laughter – and tickling the Fox crowd too.
As Fanny’s career soars, on-and-off encounters with the charming Nicky Arnstein continue. Arnstein turns up soon after Fanny joins the Ziegfeld Follies, and Fanny is sure that her call to meet with Zeigfeld was because of Nicky, since the two men know each other, although Nicky denies it. Nicky joins Fanny at an opening-night neighborhood party on Henry Street, where the company sings “Henry Street,” and Fanny and Nicky sneak off to talk about their feelings about love, with McCrimmon’s Fanny belting out the Streisand hit “People” in high-octane style.
Touring with the show, Fanny runs into Nicky again in Baltimore, where he invites her to an intimate dinner at a hotel, in one of the funniest ever seduction scenes and a comedy highlight of the show, capped by the song “You Are Woman, I Am Man.” The second act finishes up with the rousing “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” which McCrimmon belts out brilliantly, bring the Fox audience to their feet.
McCrimmon continues to wow in the second act, with songs “Sadie, Sadie (Married Lady)” and on to the Finale, with a couple of reprises of “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and “People” thrown in, as the musical wrapped up the star-crossed romance.
McCrimmon is very much the show’s shinning star, and her amazing voice is a knockout that brought the Fox audience quickly to their feet in the show’s Finale.
While McCrimmon was the biggest delight, the show also has nice turns in supporting parts, including by dazzling tap dancer Izaiah Montaque Harris, and the trio of Henry Street card-playing gal pals, led by Barbara Tirrell as Fanny’s always supportive mother, and the undercutting chorus of Mrs. Strakosh and Mrs. Meeker, played with sassy charm by Eileen T’Kaye and Christine Bunuan respectively. Walter Coppage was properly pompous as Ziegfeld and Stephen Mark Lukas was suavely charming as Nick Arnstein.
Well cast, well acted and very well sung, “Funny Girl” is pure musical theater delight.
“Funny Girl” is on stage at the Fabulous Fox through February 4.
© Cate Marquis
