New Boston production of "Funny Girl" is an emotional love letter to theater
BOSTON - "Funny Girl" helped secure Barbra Streisand's stardom. Now, a new production of the recent Broadway hit is in Boston, and a new actress is taking on one of the most demanding roles in musical theater.
"I've stripped away kind of the expectations of the industry and what people expect because of Barbra, " says Hannah Shankman.
She's portraying Fanny Brice, who, in the play, became an unlikely star in the early 1900s, headlining the Ziegfield Follies.
"It's an out-of-body experience being able to step into her shoes and to sing Julie Stein's incredible, incredible score," Shankman tells WBZ-TV.
A love letter to theater
Streisand's "Funny Girl" had its out-of-town try-out at the Shubert Theatre in Boston before the production moved to Broadway.
Once in New York, a young Melissa Manchester was in the audience. She grew up to be a Grammy-award-winning singer and songwriter, who is now playing Rose Brice, Fanny's mother.
"The tonality of how it's written is so spectacular and familiar to me on a cellular level. Everybody takes an emotional journey, which was not true in the original '64 production," Manchester says.
Shankman explains, "It's also really about a woman finding her place and her strength and her life through love of her husband, through love of herself, through love from her mother. She really finds and grows up to be this woman, who is exactly who she always wanted to be."
Beloved songs like "Don't Rain on My Parade" are well known, but seeing them performed on stage transforms the experience.
Manchester says, "For the audience to hear a very, very well-known American standard within the context of its original place, which is sung by a character within a scene. That is so moving on such a deep level for the audience."
"It's lovely here too because you can actually see some of the people in the audience," Shankman explains. "It's absolutely breathtaking. It's truly wonderful to do a show that is a love letter to the theater in what feels like a theater it belongs in, and the opera house is really that."
Still resonating with audiences
While the story takes place in the early 20th century and was written in the 1960s, the actors say it still resonates.
Manchester says, "Like the magic of all art, it has grown into this moment."
"I always say that I want people to leave feeling empowered…The show grapples with so many different emotional states from so many different characters in the show, and in the end, we really see Fanny harness her own strength and power, and I hope that empowers other people to do the same in their lives," Shankman told WBZ-TV.
You can see "Funny Girl" at the Citizen's Opera House through February 16th.
