Funny Girl is a weird one. It’s a show with a handful of beloved songs and some leading stars who have made Broadway history in its 60-year legacy, Lea Michele included, but a plot that’s a serious downer. And yet the show has a reputation for being a must-see classic. When you mention Funny Girl, most people think of how great “Don’t Rain On My Parade” is, not how it centers on how a gambler ruined a nice lady’s life. It is a relief, then, that Funny Girl on tour — stopping at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House — is carried under Michael Mayer’s direction through its tough book and plot by a spectacular starring cast, costumes, orchestra, and set.
Perhaps most importantly, Katerina McCrimmon is a revelation as Fanny Brice, and I think she’s fixed Funny Girl.
Of the other Fanny Brices I’ve seen and heard, McCrimmon’s performance best encapsulates exactly what Funny Girl’s Fanny Brice should be — a whip-smart, deeply kind person devoid of insecurity who loves to love, even to her own detriment. Her Fanny captures the audience’s attention, earning their laughter and their respect with her hilarity and spirit.
This show has had a long, divided history among theater critics, not to mention feminists. Fanny Brice, leading Broadway star of the 1920s–1940s, spends most of the show insisting that her gambler-slash-failed-investor romantic partner, Nick Arnstein, played pitch-perfectly as a greasy but loving partner by Stephen Mark Lukas, is just peachy for her. Meanwhile he, albeit unmaliciously, gambles and fumbles away her fortune. Over the course of their marriage, Fanny continues to give him thousands upon thousands out of sheer, trusting love while he continues to fail, which injures his pride and infuriates him further. As Fanny tells Nick that he’s “done so much” for her, he, sort of admirably, asks her repeatedly, “How, though?” Neither the book of the musical nor its lyrics ever quite illustrate an explanation of how Fanny could be this blind. As a result, it is very easy to find Funny Girl frustrating. Many have.
The show doesn’t give us much reason to be optimistic for Fanny, who acts in Nick’s interests until the very last song in the musical. The show takes two whole acts of our central character remaining static while Nick’s crimes steadily grow in scope to show us its thesis, forcing the show to find a way to carry itself through — but McCrimmon and Lukas’ complicated chemistry, their stellar character acting, and the production’s visuals make it worth the wait.
McCrimmon’s execution of the final number, “Finale,” is a tour-de-force. After deciding to separate from her husband after he leaves prison — like I said, tough show — in this number, she sings a reprise of “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” including the lines: “I marched my band out/I beat my drum/I guess we didn’t make it/At least I didn’t fake it.” It is hard to bear to see this character lose the innocence that defined her, but this is why you come to the theater. McCrimmon’s illustration of this character’s grief, her confidence that she was doing her best with the information she had as the person she was all along, and her newfound humility and optimism in just those lines have astounding impact. McCrimmon’s take gives us one of those musical theater performances that is utterly convincing as a depiction of the character’s diegetic emotional path, instead of merely being marvelous to listen to.
There are moments throughout the show when McCrimmon could potentially project with greater volume. Even when great acting calls for quieter vocals, sometimes we can’t hear her over the orchestra, which does a wonderful job. With Chris Walker’s orchestrations and Alan Williams’ dance, vocal, and incidental music arrangements and under Elaine Davidson’s conducting, it delivers the classic musical-comedy jazz that Barbara Streisand’s cast recording of this show made famous, filling the Opera House with big-band bliss.
Given this is a national tour direct from Broadway, the production has the set and costume design you’d expect and more. Every thread is in the right place, every prop is pristine. Thanks to scenic design by David Zinn and costume design by Susan Hilferty, these grand dresses, curtains, and even hand-painted banners in Fanny’s 1910s Manhattan tenement community sparkle with Broadway charm and polish. Each backdrop in the show is beautiful to look at, setting the literal stage for stunning costumes. The Kennedy Center’s grand Opera House helps further their scope and spectacle. This production spends a lot of time in scenes in big expensive theaters, and its visuals maintain that suspension of disbelief without missing a beat.
The show requires that elements beyond its actual story carry the night, and this cast and crew come through and then some. Go see it.
Running Time: Two hours and 40 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.
Funny Girl on North American tour plays through July 14, 2024, in the Opera House at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($49–$189, with MyTix and Student Rush options on June 30–July 5) at the box office, online, or by calling (202) 467-4600 or toll-free at (800) 444-1324.
The Funny Girl program is online here.
COVID Safety: Masks are optional in all Kennedy Center spaces for visitors and staff. If you prefer to wear a mask, you are welcome to do so. See Kennedy Center’s complete COVID Safety Plan here.
Lea Michele fixed it. Without her taking over and giving audience confidence in to the singing and the second act the tour would probably not have been possible.
Lea put the emphasis on the drama/emotion of Fanny as a woman, not just a Funny Girl. Actresses or audiences who go into the show thinking a comedy are mistaken, it is a drama with comedic bits.