Beanie Feldstein was originally cast as Fanny Brice in Broadway’s Funny girl revival. Now Lea Michele is taking her place. But neither is Barbra Streisand, who played Brice in the original version.
Evan Agostini, Greg Allen / Invision
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Evan Agostini, Greg Allen / Invision
Beanie Feldstein was originally cast as Fanny Brice in Broadway’s Funny girl revival. Now Lea Michele is taking her place. But neither is Barbra Streisand, who played Brice in the original version.
Evan Agostini, Greg Allen / Invision
Not everyone follows Broadway gossip. But for those who do, unraveling the musical’s current revival Funny girl was a big problem.
Short version: Beanie Feldstein was cast as Fanny Brice, and the show opened in late April. Reviews were bad. Meanwhile, Lea Michele, both in her time Glee and at other times, she has shown her eagerness to play the role of Fanny. After it was announced that Feldstein would be leaving the show in September, but before any official public name of his successor, Gawker published a piece on June 30 breaking the news that Lea Michele will finally get the role she’s been chasing, replacing Feldstein. The manufacturer later confirmed that.
Any attempt to make this a dream-come-true story for Michele, however, is complicated (at least to say) by the fact that she has been accused Terrible behavior on the spot by some of the people she worked with Glee, including Samantha Warewho said Michele’s “traumatic infractions” made her question her entire career, and who say, obviously in response let Michele’s casting in Funny girl: “Yes, Broadway promotes chastity. Yes, so does Hollywood.”
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This week, The Daily Beast published largely a single anonymous “premium show source” account of what went on, part story and part commentary. It’s all very troubling and scandalous, it’s all about feeling vulnerable and communicating terribly. (It also goes through very quickly the allegations against Michele.) There was another rumor: that Feldstein and Michele had the same theater agent (!), that everyone was very concerned with Feldstein’s feelings, that everyone is tiptoeing around her for (and her) disadvantage. But the thread that comes out is clear and obvious is shaping the debate around whose fault they didn’t replace Feldstein sooner. It’s truly amazing how successful the attempt was, to put all the blame on the failure of a production staged at the feet of a performer, the better it is to drag pull the audience back by replacing her.
It’s not much remembered anymore and it doesn’t make it into many current stories about the situation, but the reviews of this revival, while they were certainly critical of her performance, were not. says that Feldstein is terrible and everything else is. terrible. Here’s what SS Source wants you to believe – that they just swap the leadership woman right away and all will be well.
Check out the actual reviews in question: Jesse Green In New York Times said that Feldstein, while not “great”, as the role claimed, was “good”. The compliments are bland, of course, but if you suspect he wants to convey that it’s unfair to blame her for the show’s problems, think he said, “You can’t blame Feldstein for the show’s problems; that’s like blaming the clown on the elephant.” (SS sources blamed her, or at least didn’t fire her immediately, for the problems. of the show.) Green criticizes the book, he criticizes the setting in general, and he criticizes the film in particular. Adam Feldman says In Time Out New York Feldstein wasn’t the right fit for the role, but he also said the other performances were terrible, the direction was mixed, and the book didn’t work. Frank Rizzo In Diversity says some of Feldstein’s numbers work well and some don’t, but – here’s the problem again – he says the show’s book doesn’t work, and he doesn’t like the set or the costume either.
These reviews don’t suggest to me that they just need to sell Beanie Feldstein real quick and move on. Nor do they claim that the program did not fail. What they suggested to me is that everyone involved needs to put this effort down, end it respectfully, and accept that not everything works out and everyone who doesn’t respawn. Funny girl for decades (partly due to the lack of available replacements for Barbra Streisand) was probably right.
But – and admittedly, my skepticism is creeping in here – no one wants to do that! It would be much better for the producers and the financial future of the show if the matter was narrowed down to one actor, so that if you were to replace her – especially with so much and so much and so much fanfare. The hype and attention you get when you replay a role all about the problematic challenge of winning over a woman who is no longer warm and friendly enough – that seems like a full solution. enough. “Oh, thank goodness,” we were all encouraged to think, “they’ve fixed what’s wrong with Funny girl revival. I have to buy a ticket! “It’s easy to get an incomplete story to begin with when it’s all about the drama between and between women, it’s almost…well, funny.
Did they fix any of the other things that the reviewers complained about? I really do not know. Like most of the people watching all of this, I haven’t seen the show, but I know what I’ve read, and I’m exactly the type of person they want to convince to come see the show after replace. But why do I do that? The consensus about Feldstein is that you actually have to be Barbra Streisand to make this happen, and she’s not Barbra Streisand. But that doesn’t mean Lea Michele To be Barbra Streisand. Even if Michele has the voice Feldstein lacks and the ability to perform Funny girl songs in the concert, it is entirely possible that she will lack some of the humor and flirtatious charm that some critics noted Feldstein do yes, that role also needs.
Production is very complicated. I was recently reminded that Ethan Hawke’s Broadway debut was in the 1992 production of Seagulls also starring Laura Linney among others, and that is seriously walled. Things happen; Talented people fail. Circumstances let you down, choices you didn’t let down, choices you made do let you down, dreams don’t come true. It’s the alchemy that makes everything, and that’s what makes it so special and terrible, both terrifying and exciting. The vast majority of Broadway, theatrical, and creative work in general do not narrow down to who is to blame. It’s about respecting the annoying, mysterious, sometimes unpredictable ways in which things work or don’t work. At any rate, one of the things SS Source says in Daily Beast The important part is that the program will be “reviewed”. Now that will be very interesting.
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