with Matthew Myers / THEATRE
A 2014 Village Theatre revival in New York.
Barbra Streisand in the 1968 film.
STILL FUNNY? STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE.
MOST PEOPLE NATURALLY associate Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand. She starred in the original Broadway production and subsequent film, and many would argue that it lifted her career to greater heights: she won an Oscar for it. The text is based on the apparently true story of Fanny Brice, a Vaudevillian Broadway star who married entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein. Set in New York pre-World War I where Brice worked at the Ziegfeld Follies, it actually feels like a contemporary celebrity story. As Fanny rose to fame she contended with a tumultuous marriage thanks to a troublesome husband who ended up in prison. The show’s big hits include I’m The Greatest Star, People and the showstopper, Don’t Rain On My Parade – a signature tune for Streisand. Yet, in many ways Streisand herself overshadows the musical – making it a challenge to cast the role of Fanny in new productions. For the new Production Company revival in Melbourne the role has gone to Caroline O’Connor, who has the chops to deliver admirably considering her many Helpmann awards and career triumphs including Chicago, West Side Story, End Of The Rainbow, Piaf and Anything Goes! O’Connor certainly has box-office draw and is a sentimental favourite and a safe bet, but it will be interesting to see if Funny Girl attracts a new audience or whether its appeal will be limited to the (lucrative) nostalgia-seeking demographic. Is Funny Girl even still funny? Certainly it’s had a few nips and tucks over the years. Harvey
Caroline O’Connor plays Fanny Brice in the Melbourne revival of Funny Girl.
Fierstein rewrote the story for a recent London season. A 2014 production that started in Buenos Aires, and toured the whole of South America extensively, reimagined the Fanny character as a man named Funnie, played by actor Julio Cesar Arturo Valverde Monje. The director of the Melbourne revival production, Gale Edwards is sticking to the conventional text and has cast stalwarts Nancye Hayes and David Hobson alongside O’Connor. There are young, eager and capable performers waiting in the wings who’d die for these roles and perhaps a fresh face or two would even enhance the star-is-born aspect of the story as well as drawing new fans to the musical. But perhaps this production isn’t pitched at them. As Edwards sees it, the increasing complexities of 21st Century life make the classics resonate more profoundly than ever. “They resonate because they deal with the core issues in our lives,” she says. “They express these core issues so as to stimulate our emotions and our intelligence, and they do this through music, dance and drama.”
MORE: Funny Girl plays until July 31 at the Melbourne State Theatre. Go to theproductioncompany. com.au/funny-girl DNA 23