Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for Broadway’s “Funny Girl.”
The Broadway tour of “Funny Girl” at the Citizens Bank Opera House, makes it abundantly clear what Fanny Brice (Hannah Shankman) is getting herself into. Within the first 15 minutes of the musical, the characters have directly stated that she’s a fiercely talented — although not chorus-girl-variety beautiful — woman who will succeed in show business no matter what. The story follows the evolution of her career and personal relationships, including her ill-fated romance with professional gambler Nick Arnstein (Stephen Mark Lukas).
One may expect a stereotypically independent female protagonist based on the lyrics of such iconic songs as “Don’t Rain on My Parade” which emphasize Brice’s determination to make her own choices. Anyone with this expectation would be surprised to discover that Brice sings this personal anthem to justify leaving her career to follow a man who seems more concerned with making his fortune than loving her. Yet rather than being a disappointment, this contradiction demonstrates that Brice’s strength comes not from her ability to make choices that fit with modern ideas of independence, but from her ability to make choices that reflect what she wants. She chooses to follow Arnstein even when her friends and her boss advise her against it because she decides to prioritize their relationship.
While the script itself incorporates acknowledgments of Brice’s agency in her romantic life, the actors’ performances remove any room for doubt. Lukas does not necessarily have to portray Arnstein’s confessions of love for Brice as honest, and his performance leaves room for skepticism. The show encourages the audience to doubt Arnstein’s love of Brice, and thus question her judgment, for the majority of the first act because his behavior towards her is so performative. Specifically, Lukas uses non-speech vocalizing, including bursts of laughter and uncomfortably timed lip smacking, that comes across as insincere.
Later in the show, when Brice and Arnstein are experiencing marital problems, Arnstein expresses himself through rage-filled musical soliloquies, emphasized by dramatic lighting shifts, that interrupt their arguments — an emotional indulgence unique to him. While his exaggerated behavior appears to be played purely for comedy, it ultimately creates a contrast which allows the audience to clearly see Arnstein’s true emotions once he reveals them. In particular, when Arnstein says goodbye to Brice before the finale, Lukas is calm, quiet and still — a stark contrast from the boisterous and theatrical Arnstein presented before. Because Arnstein’s past behavior is too dramatic to seem realistic, a calm goodbye becomes one of his few moments of relatable humanity, proving that he does truly care. Therefore, Brice’s belief that Arnstein loves her throughout the show is not naive or misplaced despite the concerns of her loved ones and mistrustful audience members.
Encouraging skepticism causes the audience to be complicit in minimizing Brice’s strength by automatically assuming her love interest will take advantage of her. She is not a vulnerable young woman who is fooled, she is an adult who consciously chooses to gamble on a relationship.
The notion of Brice as an independent woman, unbothered by societal expectations, is further refuted by one of the main reasons she loves Arnstein: He makes her feel beautiful. While Brice mocks the beauty standards of her time throughout the show, including when she pretends to be a pregnant-out-of-wedlock bride in a musical number literally called “His Love Makes Me Beautiful,” she ultimately admits that one of the best things Arnstein did for her was just that. Brice secretly craves the generic beauty which her daily success refutes the necessity of. In the face of this duality, her strength cannot come from being completely immune to the impacts of social pressures, but rather from her ability to resist confinement by them.
Shankman demonstrates Brice’s confidence throughout the show, but especially in the finale, by strongly and consistently belting. Brice’s devastation at the departure of Arnstein is clearly visible, yet is short lived as she acknowledges the good she gained from their relationship and transitions into a reprise of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” without an ounce of regret or melancholy.
The reprisal of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” becomes Brice’s anthem for choosing love over work in addition to her anthem for returning to work after a failed relationship. Performing both with equal strength and pride prevents attempts to rank one action as better than the other. Working and being a housewife are equally strong choices because each action is what Brice thinks is best for herself at a given time in her life. Although elements of the story itself come across as outdated, the performances of Lukas and Shankman allow Brice to remain an inspiring protagonist, even if her choices seem flawed at times.
