“ I guess you didn’t bother to actually see the current production, with a revised book. The very end of the play practically screamed the « theme » I referred to.”
As it happens, I did see it, both in London in 2016 and on Broadway in April. I would humbly suggest (and again, I’m not picking an argument with you over Beanie, who I quite enjoyed, but rather your analysis of the show itself) that irrespective of whether or not the rewrite is in improvement (I believe the overall consensus is that it isn’t, though I think it is better in some respects)…
In my opinion, the score and the overall way the show was originally shaped and structured don’t necessarily support those rewrites, any more than the score was necessarily supported by Beanie Feldstein’s vocals. But even if you were correct in your estimation that the theme of this new version is “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again” – that’s not the story of Fanny Brice, it’s not the overarching theme of Funny Girl, and it never has been. (No matter how much the finale or any comments on the Internet scream otherwise.) |
