"...brash and funny"

June 28, 2003 performance reviewed by Pat Nichols

The backdrop of the opening scene of Funny Girl at the Barrington Stage Company shows a lower East Side neighborhood with a sign pointing to the stage door and a table of ladies off to the left playing poker.

It creates the right atmosphere for the story of Fanny Brice, who started her stage career at age 10 in the early 1900s. The show chronicles how Brice sang and danced her way to fame and fortune and her relationship with Nick Arnstein, the handsome gambler who swept her off her feet.

The original play opened on Broadway in 1964 and ran for three years.

Composer Jules Styne and lyricist Bob Merrill crafted a winning and long-lasting musical score including "People," "Don't Rain on My Parade," and "You Are Woman, I Am Man."

Jeanne Goodman, as Fanny, lights up the stage with her energy and acting ability while she ascends the ladder of success as one of Florenz Ziegfeld's discoveries. The opening is a brash success of music and movement. Throughout, she tirelessly dances, flounces, taps cross the stage while she belts out the lyrics to her songs. At other times, especially during the second act, she grows pensive as Arnstein's financial problems mount and their relationship encounters difficulties.

Christopher Yates gives a solid performance as the suave, worldly Arnstein, smitten by the rising star looking for a few breaks and sure she will get them. He maintains a steady balance between being a big-time gambler and a man sincerely in love with the talented Fanny.

Laura Kenyon plays the Jewish mother of a talented child and later adult, gracefully, but always couched with a mother's own concerns. Bertilla Baker plays Mrs. Strakosh, the busybody friend of Mrs. Brice with the right sense of a woman who needs to know what is happening - to everyone.

Craig Waletsko makes Eddie Ryan believable as not only Fanny's manager but also as her good friend. And he taps up a storm in the Rat-tat-tat-tat number with a uniformed ensemble behind him.

As the elegant Florenz Ziegfeld, James Van Treuren tries to keep Fanny in line but finally adjusts his stance of being boss to that of a man able to compromise so the production can go on.

The first act flies by with a lot of action, colorful and well-choreographed dancers who move easily from one scene to another. Toward the end, Goodman and Yates sing a duet, the sensitive "You Are Woman, I Am Man" and then Fanny does "Don't Rain on My Parade."

But the second act, which opens on a new house Arnstein bought for Fanny, grows more serious as Arnstein's misfortunes multiply and money becomes a divisive factor in their relationship.

Funny Girl plays the good times and the bad, success on one hand and failure on the other, the ability to overcome an incomplete education with a drive that settled for no less than the top.

Director Julianne Boyd has put together another ambitious musical; brash and funny, choreographed by Tony Parise, with a talented star and a bittersweet story that still lets the audience leave amid prolonged applause with a good feeling.

Fanny Brice lives on in Sheffield.