Lights of Broadway: Funny Girl

Funny Girl

SYNOPSIS: Jule Styne, Bob Merrill and Isobel Lennart musicalize the life of Fanny Brice, who rose from the ranks of Brooklyn vaudeville to headline the Ziegfeld Follies, but found unhappiness in her marriage to gambler Nick Arnstein.

REVIEW:

Beanie Fedstein’s acting was top notch. She was funny and comedic songs like “you are woman, I am man” were brilliant. She also was able to sell the character 100% of the time. The bigger issues came to songs she had to really wail on. “People” was very pitchy to where it was uncomfortable. But, she always landed and belted out the last note. Each song ending with a powerful finish along with the acting helped cover the cracks in her performance.

Jane Lynch was good but was absolutely doing her character from Mrs. Maisel. Ramin Karimloo was great, delivering gorgeous renditions of songs with excellent timing comedically, but overall the character felt a bit rushed and two-dimensional.

The breakout was Jared Grimes as Eddie. He was funny, could sing wonderfully, and delivered multiple tap numbers with ease that felt fresh and timeless. The sets were perfection, the costumes were perfection, and the lighting design was perfection. However, the rewrites from Harvey Fierstein felt a bit weird and didn’t help any of the cracks get covered from the original story.

The directing however is the biggest sin of this show. It at many times felt predictable or even worse, small town community theater. Many times before songs would start there would be a pause for the music to kick in instead of seeming less transitions between book and score.

Overall I’d give it a 3.5/5 mostly for the directing choice and Beanie needing a bit more vocal work.

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