Agree on "My Man." Not available -- this was discussed ad infinitum circa the previews -- and that's a good thing. The last thing the iteration needs is to trigger thoughts of the film. I passionately agree on "Music That Makes Me Dance." Gorgeous torch, one of Styne's best. It was conceived as a "My Man" proxy (I know, I know, not in the film; I was in that thread, too), a Follies number. When I saw this production, I was baffled by its re-purposed placement, including the odd trappings that conjure Magritte and Ken Russell, and have a strange echoing reverb in the amp. When the number arrived, I flashed on the number of posts that suggested cutting it, and it's easy to understand why. Just put it back with Fanny center stage, use the original announcement that's on the OBC.
The costuming was always bizarre, and their replacement logical since the Feldstein Fanny clothes didn't all work on Benko. I find the last red dress we've all seen in clips the most garishly unappealing, especially in the show. The best costume -- the "Cornet Man" outfit -- might be one that survives. But all of the longer gowns, including the unfortunate one worn in the "People" sequence fail to suggest Brice, even as a younger woman. Against that set, well, the visual recreation of the era is not especially evocative.
I continue to contemplate the second act, to me unfixable without structural work and rethinking; simply changing dialog in the scenes doesn't help the suspense-free plotting. If only the show dared to view Nick as a real criminal. Which he was. Falling in love with a man who has con in his DNA is a decent subject, and apparently part of the real Brice. The show treats his criminality as a "whoops" sort of stumble into white collar crime, even with the revised mother-daughter scene. If it were about the human error in putting your focus on someone unworthy of you, the show would acquire an edge. And even relevance. But it tries to have it both ways -- Nick is kinda sorta a guy with a heart out of Guys and Dolls and also a sexy get -- and so its trajectory is not really "about" anything but a disintegrating marriage. An hour of it. We know it can't be funny, but if only it were more honest, so that a woman scrambling to hold onto her gift and resulting stardom was a survival tool, the way the "Parade" reprise suggests. The story doesn't have a strong enough point of view beyond getting over Nick. So we're left for waiting for Fanny to lose him. It's just not compelling enough. Maybe Michel will embody the adult Fanny with more gravitas, and it will feel more authentic somehow. It's uncomfortable now because the current Fanny can't locate that sophisticated woman post Sadie.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
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