Feldstein can only do so much as a Broadway star with what she has to offer at this point. Everyone will be able to see that; opinions will vary as to how much it matters.
Funny Girl
Opening Night: April 24, 2022
Theater: August Wilson Theatre
Website: funnygirlonbroadway.com
This bittersweet comedy is the story of the indomitable Fanny Brice, a girl from the Lower East Side who dreamed of a life on the stage. Everyone told her she’d never be a star, but then something funny happened—she became one of the most beloved performers in history, shining brighter than the brightest lights of Broadway.
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April 24, 2022
This could all have been predicted; over the years, many revivals have been attempted and defeated because the thing a revival is trying to revive is not to be found in the property itself. It’s in the personality of the necessary star: someone not nice but inevitable, not diligent but explosive, not well-rounded but weird. They don’t grow them that way much, anymore, nor write new material for them. Paging Ms. Streisman!
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The rain clouds gather early over the misplaced-pride parade that is the Broadway revival of Funny Girl. The audience is primed for a boffo old-fashioned musical comedy, which this production promises. Even before the curtain—which itself depicts a curtain!—goes up, the audience claps at the overture’s most famous songs; when Beanie Feldstein makes her first appearance as Ziegfeld Follies comedian Fanny Brice, stares into an invisible mirror and delivers her famous opening self-affirmation (”Hello, gorgeous!”), the crowd goes wild. But then she starts to sing.
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Feldstein doesn’t possess Streisand’s voice, but what she does offer is a sweet, piping sound that encompasses the score’s range from E below middle C to a high F. Equally important, she respects that 1964 score and doesn’t modernize it with a lot of melismatic distortions.
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Why was Brice such an immense star? Watching clips of her work, it seems a mystery; some alchemy must have taken place, and we in the future are missing the chemical ingredients. I can picture a version of Funny Girl that makes that case — that an odd lady with an odd voice nevertheless had it. But Feldstein doesn’t give us that, either. Vocal issues, you can work around. But presence? That one, you gotta have.
READ THE REVIEWApril 24, 2022
Playing the part of a marquee idol is daunting on its own. Playing one made famous by Barbra Streisand may seem like a fool’s errand, doubtless one reason “Funny Girl” hasn’t been on Broadway since its original staging in 1964. But it’s no exaggeration to say that a star is being born at the August Wilson Theatre, where Beanie Feldstein toplines a winning revival with her own distinct cache of wit and charisma.
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A tall order, indeed. Funny Girl has never been revived on Broadway before, and it’s easy to understand why: who would dare attempt to live up to Barbra? Feldstein tries, and comes nowhere close to succeeding, but reveals something deeper: take Barbra away, and Funny Girl is not a good musical.
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All of this prompts some questions: Does Beanie Feldstein, cast in the Streisand role, make us forget Streisand, or at least make the show indelibly her own? Failing that, does the production have enough going for it so that the central performance doesn’t matter as much? The answer to both questions is, ultimately, no. Don’t misunderstand: There are solid rewards to be found in this entertainment at the August Wilson Theater.
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Feldstein gives a spirited, highly enjoyable performance, and her freshness drew squeals of appreciation from what seemed like a large contingent of very vocal young female fans on a recent press night. But she never quite makes the material soar, and this is a rickety vehicle that needs a supernova to put gas in its tank.
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Smartly sidestepping the obvious comparison from the start – the line-reading of “Hello gorgeous” sounds more conversational, less sing-songy than the one etched in our brains for all these decades – Broadway’s new Funny Girl revival doesn’t so much make a grand play for replacement as a peaceful offering for coexistence: The show that made Barbra Streisand a musical theater icon likely won’t do the same for its latest star, but neither is it cause for grumbling how-dare-shes.
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In the end, Broadway’s new Funny Girl feels like a musical comedy promise left unfulfilled. We’re told more than once that Fanny is hilarious and one-of-a-kind, but proof of that side-splitting singularity doesn’t materialize. So you long for something quirkier, zanier, more out-there and surprising. In short: Girl, show me the funny.
READ THE REVIEWApril 24, 2022
The problem with this uninspired revival of “Funny Girl” — which opened at the August Wilson Theatre on Sunday, marking the show’s Broadway return after nearly 60 years — is not simply the singular ghost of she who shall not be named. (Alright: It’s Barbra Steisand.) Rather, the issue here is the production’s inability to live up to its star-making potential that would have made us once again forgive the simplistic, sentimental and sanitized original book credited to Isobel Lennart.
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So here we finally are. In the year of our lord 2022, a revival of Funny Girl has opened on Broadway at the August Wilson Theatre (on Streisand’s 80th birthday no less), with spunky, affable, girl-next-door Beanie Feldstein plucked by director Michael Mayer to attempt the death-defying stunt of convincingly embodying “the greatest star.” Now for everyone’s burning question: Is it legendary or bone-crushing? The answer, in short, is neither — a dissatisfying conclusion for those who have eagerly anticipated either fireworks or flames. But perhaps knowing that Funny Girl is capable of being middling with a few precious high points could finally lift the veil of mythology from this untouchable property.
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April 24, 2022
Without an extraordinary lead performance, “Funny Girl” doesn’t work – which is unfortunately the case here. Vocally, Feldstein is strained and nasal and unable to handle power solos like “I’m the Greatest Star,” “People,” “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” and “The Music That Makes Me Dance.” She also overplays the comedy and resorts to mugging. (I question how Feldstein could even be cast as Fanny in a high school or theater camp production.)
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April 24, 2022
Streisand’s “My Man,” which closes the film, gives the plot its proper, hardened-diva closure and is the better choice of song. However, “Don’t Rain on My Parade” is the traditional closer for the stage musical and is belted and applauded and cheered wildly as expected, but it also—sadly like a lot in Funny Girl 2022—rings hollow.
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April 24, 2022
That said, the revival could be a whole lot better than the uninvolving stroll that director Michael Mayer has turned it into. High jinks, romance, heartbreak, Brooklyn, Broadway and Monte Carlo are all liquified into a tasteless goo. There’s hardly any variation to be found. Showstoppers don’t stop the show. Fanny and Nick grow on paper, yet they flatline where it counts most — live onstage.
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April 24, 2022
This Funny Girl, which opened tonight at the August Wilson Theatre, is the first revival of the Jule Styne and Bob Merrill musical, which first premiered on the Main Stem back in 1964. That version made Barbra Steisand a star and today, on Streisand’s 80th birthday, Beanie Feldstein follows wonderfully in those footsteps.
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But the show rests and falls on Feldstein, who must posses as Brice both a grand confidence — “I’m the greatest star” — and an insecurity (“You mean it?”). Brice is a beacon for all the misfits, a stand-in for the unconventional — “a bagel on a plate full of onion rolls” — and Feldstein nails it. Plus, she can deliver a “fakachta” with authenticity.
READ THE REVIEWApril 26, 2022
The show is three hours long, but Ms. Feldstein makes the minutes fly by with such pleasure that you wish it would never end.
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