Lauren Ambrose will star as Fanny Brice in FUNNY GIRL, in the first Broadway production of the musical since it originally opened in 1964. FUNNY GIRL, which features music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by Isobel Lennart, will be directed by Tony Award-winner Bartlett Sher.
FUNNY GIRL will play at Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles from January 15 through February 26, 2012 prior to opening in spring 2012 on Broadway.
FUNNY GIRL is the road-to-stardom story of legendary entertainer Fanny Brice, from her start in a Brooklyn music hall to her meteoric rise as a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies. While her career soars, she falls in love with charming gambler Nick Arnstein, just as his own lucky streak is running out. FUNNY GIRL is an irresistible backstage drama, a heartbreaking romance and a classic musical comedy filled with unforgettable songs by the team of Jule Styne and Bob Merrill including “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” “I’m the Greatest Star,” “The Music That Makes Me Dance,” and the iconic hit “People.”
Feldstein is at her best (even when the show occasionally lets her down). While she doesn't have the vocal gifts that Streisand could employ to stake a claim on show-within-a-show stardom, Feldstein is no less convincing in her Fanny's self-belief and determination. No one would dare rain on her parade.Well, maybe a drizzle or two. Was it necessary to have Feldstein fall to the ground and roll downstage for the cheapest laugh in a show that has its share? Not even the possible period-correctness of a Ziegfeld comedy bit in which Fanny plays a Jewish WWI doughboy with bagels hanging from his belt could justify that groaner (and Feldstein's exaggerated, desperate mugging doesn't help). The kettledrum sound when a wedding-dressed Fanny, sporting a comic pregnancy pillow, bumps into her fellow dancers seems more like a bad 1970s Sonny and Cher Show sketch than anything worthy of today's Broadway stage.
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. Highlights include a hysterically seductive and hungry 'You Are Woman, I Am Man;' a crowded celebration of married life in 'Sadie, Sadie;' the touching duet 'Who Taught Her Everything She Knows'; and the showstopper-in-the-show 'Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat' with 12 dancers mimicking soldiers. Look for a moment when Karimloo shuffles playing cards theatrically and Lynch does the same not long after.
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