✭✭✭✭✩

music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill, book by Isobel Lennart, directed by Eda Holmes

Shaw Festival, Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake

May 23–October 3, 2026

Fanny Brice: “First be a person who needs people”

The Shaw Festival is giving audiences the rare chance to see the second most famous musical by composer Jule Styne. Styne is best known for Gypsy (1959) about burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee (1911-1970). The Shaw has produced Gypsy twice – in 2005 and in 2023. Now for the first time the Shaw is presenting Styne’s Funny Girl (1964) about Broadway star Fanny Brice (1891-1951). The Shaw has given the show an all-stops-out production with a 29-member cast and Sara Farb as a wonderfully sympathetic Fanny Brice.

Fanny Brice, a daughter of European immigrants, dropped out of school to begin working in a burlesque show when she was only 17. Two years later she was discovered by impresario Florenz Ziegfeld and began headlining his theatrical revue known as the Ziegfeld Follies in 1910 and performed in the show through the 1930s. The musical stops in 1927 and does not follow Brice’s career in Broadway plays, Hollywood movies or in radio. Isobel Lennart’s book has Brice wonder why she hasn’t had to suffer to be an artist as she thinks artists are supposed to do. But, in fact, Brice, renowned as a singer and comedian, had the good fortune to rise to the top without a struggle and to remain there until her death.

This means that Fanny’s life, unlike Gypsy Rose Lee’s, at least as portrayed in the musical, is devoid of dramatic conflict. Act 1 depicts rapid rise from obscurity to stardom, while Act 2 depicts her continuing life as a star. Lennart uses Nick Arnfeld, a suave and handsome professional gambler to lend the show some much needed tension. Lennart has Nick and Fanny fall in love at first sight and marry before the start of Act 2.

To make the show a more sentimental tale of romance, Lennart omits a number of inconvenient details of Brice’s real life. The real Fanny Brice was married and divorced before she ever met Arnstein. Arnstein was already married when he met Fanny, and Fanny and Nick had to wait for his divorce to come through before they could marry. Fanny and Nick did not part in rueful amicability but rather Fanny sued Nick for divorce on grounds of his unfaithfulness.

What tension there is between the two comes from first from the precarity of Nick’s manner of earning money and later because Fanny regularly earns more money than Nick, consequently upsetting the stereotypical roles of husband and wife that both, especially Nick, want to uphold. The problem is that any disputes between Nick and Fanny about money is settled almost as soon as it begins and thus do not create any dramatic tension, much less dramatic conflict.

Ultimately, Funny Girl is not about plot but rather is a grand showcase for the performer in the title role. Fanny sings or is featured in 13 of the show’s 21 numbers. In Sara Farb the Shaw Festival has found someone who makes the part her own. Farb’s acting is completely natural and avoids any of the kind of shtick that might lead to caricature. Farb makes Fanny’s reflexive self-deprecating humour an endearing trait not incompatible with Fanny’s tendency to joke around. Her singing voice is strong from its highest to its lowest notes. Farb brings out the humour in “I’m the Greatest Star”, the soulfulness in “People” and the determination in “Don’t Rain On My Parade”. Farb’s combination of sensitivity and mischievousness makes us root for Fanny from the very start.

Qasim Khan gives a fine performance as Nick. The is the first show where I’ve ever heard him sing and his velvety tenor is so pleasant I wonder why he hasn’t sung more often. Khan highlights Nick’s complexity. Nick makes a great first impression in a top hat, cape and ruffled shirt, but Khan makes Nick seem like a man who has created a grand façade to hide behind. Khan conveys an insecure ego that makes him attractive to Fanny but that also makes him dangerous. The slightly cringeworthy duet “You Are Woman, I Am Man” for Nick and Fanny points out how conventional their ways of thinking are and indicates that Nick will feel less a “man” if Fanny becomes the primary provider in their relationship.

It is a real pleasure to see Matt Alfano, so long a chorus member at the Stratford Festival, finally play a major role. He makes Eddie Ryan’s rough-hewn mode of speech contrast with Nick’s suavity, He also lends Eddie a longing for Fanny that feels more real than Nick’s. Alfano has always been an outstanding dancer and he gets to prove it in “Eddie’s Fifth Encore”, a fantastic tap sequence on top of a suitcase.

In other roles Patty Jamieson is a delightful Mrs. Brice, Fanny’s mother, who, unlike Rose in Gypsy, is proud of her daughter but does not live through her by proxy. Damien Atkins is a strong presence as Florenz Ziegfeld, who first seems as if he will be an obstacle to Fanny’s success but capitulates once he sees how much audiences like her ideas. Taurian Teelucksingh is an elegant Tenor Soloist in the big Ziegfeld Girl number “His Love Makes Me Beautiful” and Janelle Cooper lends humour and an operatic voice to Mrs. Brice’s friend, Mrs. Strakosh. Let’s hope we hear more of Cooper’s singing in future.

James Lavoie’s sets and costumes range from lavish for the grand Ziegfeld number to everyday period streetwear for the folks who live in Mrs. Brice’s neighbourhood. Now and then he creates costumes more in a 1960s than in a 1920s colour palette as in the bright orange ensemble he gives Fanny near the end of Act 1. He may mean to hint at the time when the musical was composed rather than when it takes place, this costume and occasional others are too jarring.

Parker Esse has choreographed five previous musicals at the Shaw. He has real highs as in Alfano’s big tap number and the Busby Berkeley-like “His Love Makes Me Beautiful” as women with enormous headdresses step in stately fashion down an all-white staircase. His group choreography of the number “Cornet Man” shows us what simpler, non-Ziegfeld dance looks like, while “Henry Street” captures the happiness of ordinary people. All these are in Act 1. By Act 2, Esse seems to run low on ideas so that another Ziegfeld number “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat” gives us gold-clad soldiers but uninteresting tap combinations.

By all means go to Funny Girl to see the stellar performance of Sara Farb in a production beautifully directed by Eda Holmes. It is fun to discover the original context of such hits as “People” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and to find that the musical has many other attractive numbers besides. Even if Funny Girl does not generate as involving a story as does Gypsy, it still captures an exciting moment in time in the early 1920s before so many people’s hopes would be dashed.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Sara Farb as Fanny Brice with the ensemble; Sara Farb as Fanny Brice and Qasim Khan as Nick Arnfield; scene from the number “His Love Makes Me Beautiful”. © 2026 David Cooper.

For tickets visit: www.shawfest.com