Well, that’s that. After all the controversies and badly handled original castings and headlines and backstage bruisings and firings or resignations or whatever they were, Funny Girl is, as so many suspected all along, the musical that Lea Michele was born to lead.
Broadway’s new Fanny Brice is, to put is simply and without exaggeration, a knock-out. Michele has been in the role since early September, but, with some cast members out sick with Covid in recent weeks, and to give the newcomer some breathing room, critics have only in recent days been invited to the August Wilson to observe the changes.
The wait was worth it. From the moment she begins to sing the opening number “Who Are You Now?,” audiences relax in the assurance that this musical, for whatever its other merits – or lack thereof, and there is plenty of lack thereof – will be sung by a voice that can do it justice.
No, more than justice, because Michele is so good in the role of Fanny that she lifts the entire mixed-bag production if not up to her level then pretty darn close.
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