FUNNY GIRL on Broadway - Reviews & News Thread- Page 87

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 8:16am

Someone actually checked the astrological charts of the actors to assess their "chemistry"?  That is very weird. What's next? Blood types?  Sexual orientation? Food allergies?

 

Definitely weird.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 9:54am

Who else presumed it satire, after the therapist comment? I thought it rather pithy satire at that. 

[Bette's Turban]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 11:09am

I have friends that went last night.  They had a interesting observation.  They thought some of the applause and cheers were canned and being piped in.  It never occurred to me that some of that stuff could be pre recorded.  Thoughts?  I just thought it was a interesting observation.  I guess if I ever sit thru this again I would have to really pay attention. 

[poisonivy2]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 11:15am

Penna2 said: "Grief said: "I felt a lot of joy and excitement from the full cast when I saw the show with Julie in it. It is a completely different show. Ramin seems absolutely delighted by her, and whether he's delighted to be playing opposite her, or delighted as Nick falling in love with Fanny, it works."

For anyone interested - Ramin and Julie have a number of contacts in their astrological charts showing both physical and emotional connections. I didn't see anything similar between him and Beanie."

Omg. People actually believe in these stupid star charts? Holy s__t. 

[poisonivy2]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 11:18am

I truly am still gobsmacked people actually do star charts to predict chemistry? Holy cow.

[Papi2013]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 11:23am

"I have friends that went last night.  They had a interesting observation.  They thought some of the applause and cheers were canned and being piped in.  It never occurred to me that some of that stuff could be pre recorded.  Thoughts?  I just thought it was a interesting observation.  I guess if I ever sit thru this again I would have to really pay attention."

 

It is more like they open a mike to the audience and mix it in at the end of certain songs.  I noticed it.  Definitely some manipulation going on. 

[Highland Guy]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 12:42pm

BrodyFosse123 said: "I’m out."



 

[Azúcar!]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 1:18pm

Bette's Turban said: "I have friends that went last night. They had a interesting observation. They thought some of the applause and cheers were canned and being piped in. It never occurred to me that some of that stuff could be pre recorded. Thoughts? I just thought it was a interesting observation. I guess if I ever sit thru this again I would have to really pay attention."

We noticed it as well.  I don’t think it is recorded. .  I think they have a open microphone on the audience and it’s amplified at certain moments.

[Azúcar!]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 1:35pm

The Distinctive Baritone said: "Hey moderators, if you’re going to delete comments you don’t like, can you also delete the crazy a** conspiracy theories? Thanks!"

Can you be more specific ?

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 1:45pm

B-Roll Footage

[FranklinDickson2018]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 6:35pm

That B-roll footage didn't do it for me.  I liked seeing Jared's dancing for sure, but only 15 seconds of actual singing?  And only from Beanie?  Is this the best they could do to promote the show?  If I were on the fence about going --- I am not sure I would be persuaded. 

[WldKingdomHM]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 7:23pm

I got a headache watching that 

[SweetLips22]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 7:28pm

That footage was a shocker. There was nothing there that would rush me to the box office. Jayne Lynch doing the shimmy?? Beanie showing more than she should? The whole mash-up was a smash-up of the worst kind. There was no Funny in that Girl.

[ATerrifyingAndImposingFigure]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 8:08pm

Yeah Jared’s dancing looked good and I liked the bit of physical comedy with Ramin and the couch, but the more I see of Beanie the less I like her performance in terms of both acting and singing.

I like Beanie, I think she’s been very good in previous outings I’ve seen of her, but she just doesn’t seem fit this role at all. What I’ve seen and heard of Julie had impressed me, it’s a shame the show didn’t try to go with the whole newcomer angle, I think audiences would’ve welcomed it, since Beanie was never the big draw, the show is. And with a more army received lead actress on at all times the production would probably be doing better business and getting more awards love.

[Penna2]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 8:56pm

Ramin is handsome, funny, talented and just plain adorable. I need "more him, more him." Should have used him singing that one section of People instead of Beanie at the end. Seriously. 

I watched this first at work without any sound, so didn't know what the music was. I thought what they did was a good idea and made sense for the show, however, who picked the clips to be shown? What a hot mess. I thought they showcased Ramin well - at least he wasn't shoved into a corner, and they may be playing up his participation because he has his own fan base. Ahem.

Jared is a star and really likable. Jane's shimmy - meh. 6 tap dancers?

Whoever chose the clips of Beanie did not do her any favors. 5+ of that pink dress/nightgown. Having her fall and roll on the floor? I guess she had to sing DROMP. Sadly, a lot of people aren't paying attention.

Bottom line, now that I have heard Julie sing and have seen her cute videos, the photos comparing her to Fanny, etc., I wish they had gone with the newcomer idea - as someone else mentioned. Beanie is just wrong for the role.

 

 

[Auggie27]

Posted: 6/1/22 at 11:45pm

Saw the show this afternoon via $72.50 seat on TKTS (J mezz, not bad, but I wouldn't pay double.). Full house, entire company in. Every seat filled. Confident, hit-status performance. But it feels like stock. It's not done on the cheap, the audience isn't cheated out of visuals and era-specific world building. It just feels like a summer-before-Broadway iteration. Not much to add to the casting debate, coming down in the middle. My problem is the show itself: score aside, it's just a mediocrity, its stakes -- a talented woman abandoning her calling for a career criminal -- hard to make persuasive.  The audience mostly cheered. the show is blasted out with excessive and non-specific amplification, voices untethered from faces. How ironic, then, that everything is played down center; the show aims for intimacy with disembodied voices. Far from a debacle, yet the idea of paying $300 per ticket for this remains shocking. 

[Penna2]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 12:17am

Auggie27 said: My problem is the show itself: score aside, it's just a mediocrity, its stakes -- a talented woman abandoning her calling for a career criminal -- hard to make persuasive. 

For me that is the conflict that SHOULD make the story work. Fanny never abandoned her calling for Nicky. If anything, she fought harder to have both. Maybe I'm a sap, I'll admit to it, but Nicky was a con man, but they loved each other. It wasn't like he was in jail all the time and once he got out of jail over the stock theft, he never got in trouble with the law again. So this suggests something about being with Fanny pushing a button. I don't buy Ramin and Beanie - I'd love to see Ramin and Julie - might make the story more believable.

Didn't mean to go off on a tangent, just to say - the romance is necessary to the story. I seem to remember reading somewhere the original title was My Man and the Woman Who Loved Him or something like that - but they couldn't get the rights to the song (I heard Nicky owned them). It was never intended to be just Fanny's story - that only happened after Streisand came on board. Personally, I liked the 2nd act and felt a couple of the Fanny numbers could have been cut to develop the relationship with Nick more as a counterpoint - give him equal weight. Fierstein did what he could, but without a complete re-write of the entire show, he did what he could.

In any event, it sounds like the cast and crew got a pep talk from the coach in the locker room. No call in from Beanie for Julie to cover for the matinee today. New promo. Let's win one for the Gipper and keep this thing going.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 1:43am

That footage... The Catskills Community Players production of Funny Girl looks not great. Awful choreo, hammy acting, the nasal singing. Pass. 

[bk]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 2:01am

Bette's Turban said: "I have friends that went last night. They had a interesting observation. They thought some of the applause and cheers were canned and being piped in. It never occurred to me that some of that stuff could be pre recorded. Thoughts? I just thought it was a interesting observation. I guess if I ever sit thru this again I would have to really pay attention."

I've been saying this for a few years now - I first noticed it for the tour of Hamilton. The minute the pre-show announcement came on it began. And I was smack in the center of the orchestra section and looked all around me and NO ONE, not a single person was screaming and applauding. So, I thought, maybe it's all coming from kiddies in the balcony - but a friend told me it was the same there, that it all sounded like it was coming in through the speakers. It sure would explain a lot of of the outsized, crazy reaction even the most mundane things get these days. The cynic in me believes it.

 

[bk]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 2:02am

Azúcar! said: "Bette's Turban said: "I have friends that went last night. They had a interesting observation. They thought some of the applause and cheers were canned and being piped in. It never occurred to me that some of that stuff could be pre recorded. Thoughts? I just thought it was a interesting observation. I guess if I ever sit thru this again I would have to really pay attention."

We noticed it as well. I don’t think it is recorded. . I think they have a open microphone on the audience and it’s amplified at certain moments."

I do think it's pre-recorded and they sweeten as they go. No overhead mic on an audience would do what you're suggesting.

 

[Auggie27]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 7:26am

Sitting midway in the mezz yesterday afternoon, decent seat in the somewhat inhospitable front-rear-mezz (I saw Groundhog Day, Flower Drum Song, and  Carrie from up there!), it did sound like the cheers and tumultuous responses came from the spot where Ziegfeld spoke. Behind me. Two people turned around a couple of times when the loud response happened, as if "what are they on?" or "where are they?" Sweetened or piped in, it's not appropriate to this piece. It's not Spring Awakening.

As noted above, the sound design is overkill, not trusting the music or the singers. Feldstein does some perfectly lovely upper register work on "Who Are You Now?" and elsewhere, (I didn't have issues with "People" that others have), and when she doesn't push money notes, certainly isn't anything close to the misfire some describe. But dialing up the volume has a distancing effect. Blasting her vocals doesn't help her case. It's already a big performance, that presentational clowning and rolling down the stage in the clip suggest the size. If the show trusted her Fanny characterization more, developing its subtleties, and Mayer reined in some of the shtick, she'd score more consistently.

(Sidebar: She's really quite attractive in the "Cornet Man" costume and wig. Young, sexy, the tailored fit very flattering. And then she's made to wear some of the evening's worst outfits, especially the the "You Are Woman" gown and wig, which give her a high school musical quality. It's startlingly wrong for the seduction scene. She's supposed to attract Nicky, but she's done up like the Queen Mother. The draped shinning gold satin, the wig out of "Forum", it's just shocking. She isn't well costumed again until act two, a simple maroon dress makes grown-up Fanny look striking and sophisticated. Enough with the caftans.)

The direction pushes her to be outrageous, and then tries to turn her into a serious woman fighting for her man and career. Feldstein isn't unable to play the adult Fanny, but no one helped her stitch together the two sides of this woman, so she seems to be playing one or the other. The second act, with its one-note marriage destruction plotting, makes it more challenging. Still, if this is where the story takes her, let her get there. Stop amping the voice so the roof is raised. She's not Jennifer Holiday, need not be, and trying to suggest such a feat does her no favors. I have no idea what is going on with "Music That Makes Me Dance," its abstract setting and bizarre echo chamber mic make it sound pre-recorded. Of course it isn't, but late in the show, just let her stand on stage and sing, naturally. it's so tech-canned in presentation.

I wish more people blamed Mayer for the issues in her performance. Another director would've helped shape and balance her take.  

Updated On: 6/2/22 at 07:26 AM

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 7:44am

Auggie27 said: "I wish more people blamed Mayer for the issues in her performance. Another director would've helped shape and balance her take."

This is an excellent point, Auggie, and one that I have stated in my posts. As problematic as I found Feldstein's performance to be, I think Mayer is just as much, if not more so, to blame. As the director, he has helmed a limp, cheap, and oftentimes lazy production.

I can't help but wonder what Bartlett Sher's production that was supposed to happen back in 2012 would have been like. We certainly would not have had the issues with the over the top performances and blasted sound designed. Sher has proved time and time again that less is more when it comes to character performances and sound designs. I also think the overall look and feel of the production would have been much tighter and "classier"... Alas, I am merely speculating on what coulda should been...

[BJR]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 9:21am

The laughter and applause is definitely being sweetened. But it's not the first or only show doing that...

[soxboy22]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 10:22am

Producers must be kicking themselves for not bringing forth a Broadway revival before now.  The show is selling well without good reviews and good word-of-mouth (at least the WOM i usually hear is it’s not as bad as _____ thought it would be <sheesh>.  Generations were open to seeing the show even without Streisand, which I think was the main concern.  Only five years separated the two most recent Gypsys. Just sayin’.

[Azúcar!]

Posted: 6/2/22 at 11:53am

bk said: "Bette's Turban said: "I have friends that went last night. They had a interesting observation. They thought some of the applause and cheers were canned and being piped in. It never occurred to me that some of that stuff could be pre recorded. Thoughts? I just thought it was a interesting observation. I guess if I ever sit thru this again I would have to really pay attention."

I've been saying this for a few years now - I first noticed it for the tour of Hamilton. The minute the pre-show announcement came on it began. And I was smack in the center of the orchestra section and looked all around me and NO ONE, not a single person was screaming and applauding. So, I thought, maybe it's all coming from kiddies in the balcony - but a friend told me it was the same there, that it all sounded like it was coming in through the speakers. It sure would explain a lot of of the outsized, crazy reaction even the most mundane things get these days. The cynic in me believes it.

"

Yes!  Hamilton is guilty of this as well.  But I guess since the work on stage is of a better standard ;  it’s not questioned as much.  In Funny Girl there is such a twilight zone disconnect with the audience reaction that I’m guessing it’s even more amped up.   

Updated On: 6/2/22 at 11:53 AM