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    ‘A Face in the Crowd’ Isn’t About Trump. It Just Seems Like It.

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    Elvis Costello and Sarah Ruhl’s musical adaptation of the 1957 film, a satire about a hustler turned power-hungry TV personality, hits the London stage.Stop me if you think you have heard this one before: A man gains television fame on the strength of his purported connection to everyday Americans and their resentment of elites, and before long he converts that fame into political influence in a right-wing presidential campaign.That is the rough outline of the 1957 film “A Face in the Crowd,” which featured a pre-sitcom Andy Griffith as Lonesome Rhodes, a wild-eyed, guitar-slinging hustler who is discovered in an Arkansas jail by an ambitious radio producer and becomes a national phenomenon — until a hot mic moment reveals his bottomless contempt for his fans and they abandon him. Written by Budd Schulberg, based on a short story he had written years earlier, and directed maximally by Elia Kazan, “A Face in the Crowd” was an outlandish but eerily plausible speculative satire about the dangerous seductions of mass media.Now it has been adapted as a musical with a book by Sarah Ruhl and songs by Elvis Costello, which is scheduled to open at the Young Vic in London on Sept. 20. Ruhl and Costello, talking amid rehearsals last month, took pains to stress that they don’t see their show as directly addressing the rise of Donald Trump, who turned television fame into political capital. But there is no escaping that, much as Schulberg’s original was partly responding to the hysteria of the McCarthy era, their musical version began gestating during Trump’s 2016 campaign for president, and a large part of it was written during that year.“We’ve been careful not to tie the thing directly to Trump,” said Ruhl, “partly because it’s all there — Budd Schulberg was so prescient. There have been lines I’ve had to take out because they seemed too on the nose. At one point, some of the merch that Lonesome was selling included steak, something that Trump was also pushing.”The story is “about what is within us that we can be persuaded to desire, and the fact that we desire it means it’s within us in the first place,” said Elvis Costello, right, with the show’s director, Kwame Kwei-Armah.Ellie KurtzCostello also brushed aside a narrowly timely interpretation. “I’m resistant to the notion that this is an analogy,” he said. “It’s right in the title: It’s ‘A Face in the Crowd,’ not ‘The Face of Lonesome.’ It’s about what is within us that we can be persuaded to desire, and the fact that we desire it means it’s within us in the first place, like original sin.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Roundabout to Stage ‘Pirates of Penzance’ and ‘Yellow Face’ on Broadway

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      Roundabout Theater Company, the biggest nonprofit on Broadway, said it would produce the three shows next season.Roundabout Theater Company, the biggest nonprofit operating on Broadway, is planning to stage a jazz-inflected production of “The Pirates of Penzance,” Gilbert and Sullivan’s famed 19th-century comic operetta, in the spring of 2025, the organization said Tuesday.Next season it also plans to stage the first Broadway productions of two plays: “English,” Sanaz Toossi’s work about a group of Iranians trying to learn English, which won last year’s Pulitzer Prize in drama, and “Yellow Face,” David Henry Hwang’s semi-autobiographical play sparked by the controversy over the casting of a white performer as a Eurasian character in the original production of “Miss Saigon.”All three shows will be staged at the Todd Haimes Theater, which is currently called the American Airlines but is about to be renamed for the Roundabout chief executive and artistic director who died last year after four decades with the organization.The announcement, which also includes plans for two Off Broadway plays and the promise of an Off Off Broadway work, indicates that Roundabout is planning its most robust season since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a financially devastating period that, for Roundabout, has been followed by fewer productions and smaller casts. Although revivals of classic musicals were once Roundabout’s bread and butter, “The Pirates of Penzance” will be the first musical production to begin at Roundabout in six years.“We’re here, and we’re producing, and we’re producing some exciting stuff,” said Scott Ellis, a longtime Haimes collaborator who is serving as Roundabout’s interim artistic director, and who is expected to stay in that role for at least two years. “It felt important to say that we’re committed to producing as many shows as we used to.”“The Pirates of Penzance,” a comedy about an indentured pirate apprentice who falls in love with a military officer’s daughter, was once a staple of American theater, and it has been staged a whopping 26 times on Broadway, starting in 1879. But the last Broadway revival was in 1981.This new production, directed by Ellis, features a reconceived book, score and setting — it is to be set in New Orleans, with a framing device imagining that Gilbert and Sullivan staged “The Pirates of Penzance” there. The script has been adapted and updated (the female characters are more capable than in historic productions, for example) by Rupert Holmes, who has also written some new lyrics; the score has been reorchestrated with jazz stylings by Joseph Joubert and Daryl Waters.The show is to star Ramin Karimloo, last seen on Broadway in a 2022 revival of “Funny Girl,” and David Hyde Pierce, best known for the television show “Frasier” and now featured Off Broadway, at the Shed, in Stephen Sondheim’s posthumous musical, “Here We Are.” Karimloo will play the Pirate King, while Pierce will play Major General Stanley as well as Gilbert, who is now a character explaining to the audience the adaptation’s conceit. The two test-drove the roles at a one-night Roundabout benefit concert in 2022.The production of “Yellow Face,” which is to start performances in September, will star Daniel Dae Kim, who in 2016 played the King of Siam in a Broadway revival of “The King and I” and is an alumnus of the television shows “Lost” and the “Hawaii Five-0” reboot. The play is to be directed by Leigh Silverman, who in 2007 directed productions of it in Los Angeles (at the Mark Taper Forum) and New York (at the Public Theater). Kim recently recorded an audio version of the play for Audible, also directed by Silverman.“It feels more relevant now than it did even when it was originally produced, so we made a big push to give the play its due,” Kim said in an interview. “Representation has been a big issue in my career and my life, and this play’s subject matter is really the issue of representation. In some sense it’s a time capsule, but it’s also a barometer for where we are today. And it’s also very funny and entertaining, because no one goes to theater to be taught a lesson — we go to theater to be entertained.”The production of “English,” which is to start performances in December, is to be directed by Knud Adams, who also directed the Off Broadway production in 2022 at Atlantic Theater Company.Roundabout is also planning to stage two new plays Off Broadway next season: “The Counter,” about a friendship between a waitress and a customer at a small-town diner, written by Meghan Kennedy and directed by David Cromer, and “Liberation,” about a friendship among six Ohio women, written by Bess Wohl and directed by Whitney White. And the company said it would stage an Off Off Broadway production in its underground space, but that it has not yet chosen that show. More

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      ‘Treason,’ the Musical, Was Built on an Online Foundation

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      The producers cultivated online followers for three years before mounting a full production, bringing them along on the show’s journey to the stage.The catchy, folk-tinged numbers from “Treason the Musical” have been streamed online over a million times, in 96 countries. Its fans — known as “Plotters” — have been listening to an EP, an acoustic record and a live album of the songs, as well as sharing their own performances on TikTok. But until this fall, there hadn’t even been a full-scale production of the show.Unlike “Beetlejuice,” “Heathers” or “Dear Evan Hansen,” which all parlayed onstage popularity into huge digital followings, “Treason” is turning the formula for musical success around. Its producers cultivated an online fandom for three years before raising the curtain on the show, and are now banking on those fans buying theater tickets, too.It seems to be working. “Treason” is currently on a 27-show tour of Britain that culminates in two performances at London’s largest theater, the 2,286-seater Palladium, on Nov. 21-22.Created by Ricky Allan, the musical tells the story of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605: a failed attempt by a group of persecuted English Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London and assassinate the protestant King James I. The show features folk ballads, rousing pop and rock numbers, and spoken word and rap, with period costumes — ruffs and capes, doublets and hose — and candle-like lighting to evoke a 17th-century setting.As an original retelling of an episode from English history, “Treason” brings to mind another grass-roots British success story: “Six,” the hit musical about the wives of King Henry VIII. “Six” started out as a scrappy student show in the Edinburgh Fringe and grew into a professional production that is playing on the West End and Broadway. Its cast album became the second-most streamed of all time (after “Hamilton”), and its Instagram account has more followers than any West End show ever.Roxanne Couch, center, as Catherine Parr, one of the six wives of King Henry VII in “Six.”Pamela RaithWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      ‘Funny Girl’ Starring Lea Michele to Close Labor Day Weekend

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      The actress, whose star turn in the Broadway musical has reversed its flagging fortunes, will stay with the show to the end.A Broadway revival of “Funny Girl” that was battered and boosted by offstage drama will finish its roller-coaster ride over Labor Day weekend, the show’s producers announced on Thursday.The production — the first revival of a musical long deemed unrevivable because of the long shadow of its original star, Barbra Streisand — has been among Broadway’s best-selling shows ever since Lea Michele, of “Glee” fame and then flak, stepped into the title role.Michele, whose can’t-miss voice and can’t-turn-away comeback story have turned her tenure into the talk of the town, will have spent a year in the role: Her first performance was Sept. 6, 2022, and her final performance will be Sept. 3, 2023. She replaced Beanie Feldstein, whose comedic chops, according to critics, were not matched by the vocal range required for the role.Michele has essentially single-handedly reversed the show’s fortunes, which had been flagging until she joined the cast. The show’s grosses more than doubled when she stepped into the role, and plunge whenever she is out. (Last week, when she and her co-star, Ramin Karimloo, were on vacation, the show’s grosses dropped by a staggering $950,000, to 50 percent of what they had been the previous week.)Critics have gushed. In The New York Times, Jesse Green described Michele as “a missile: a performer who from her first words (‘Hello, Gorgeous’) shoots straight to her target and hits it.” In the Los Angeles Times, Charles McNulty wrote “Lea Michele is delivering a tour de force for the ages.”More on N.Y.C. Theater, Music and Dance This SpringMusical Revivals: Why do the worst characters in musicals get the best tunes? In upcoming revivals, world leaders both real and mythical get an image makeover they may not deserve, our critic writes.Rising Stars: These actors turned playwrights all excavate memories and meaning from their lives in creating these four shows, which arrive in New York in the coming months.Gustavo Dudamel: The New York Philharmonic’s new music director, will conduct Mahler’s Ninth Symphony in May. It will be one of the hottest tickets in town.Feeling the Buzz: “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’” is back on Broadway. Its stars? An eclectic cast of dancers who are anything but machines.Her run in the show has been all the more compelling because of its back story: On “Glee,” Michele played a character who idolizes Streisand, sings songs from “Funny Girl,” and then lands the starring role in a fictional revival. Michele, in a life-imitates-art sense, seemed destined to take on the role on Broadway, particularly since the real-world revival was being directed by Michael Mayer, who played a significant role in Michele’s career by casting her in her breakout role, in “Spring Awakening,” when she was still a teenager. But by the time the “Funny Girl” revival rolled around, Michele had been denounced on social media after being accused of behaving poorly toward her television castmates, and the production turned instead to Feldstein, a well-liked star of “Booksmart.”The “Funny Girl” revival opened last April, but critics were generally underwhelmed by Feldstein’s performance, and sales had begun to droop by summer. That’s when Feldstein left, and Michele arrived, creating a high-stakes spectacle for a show in need of a jolt and an actress in need of a new narrative. “This was a make-or-break moment for Michele’s career,” McNulty wrote.Michele’s performance has thrilled audiences, and, once she arrived, the show recorded a cast album. She has tirelessly promoted the show, dancing at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, kvelling over a letter from Streisand on “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” playing charades with Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show.” In interviews, she has deployed a combination of charm, contrition and humility.The producing team, led by Sonia Friedman, offered no explanation for the decision to close, and a spokesman had no comment. But it has been widely expected within the industry that once Michele’s tenure was over, the show would end its run. That is not particularly unusual for star-driven musical revivals: “Funny Girl” will have outlasted the recent revival of “The Music Man,” for example, which ran for 13 months and closed with the departures of its big draws, Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.The show’s four lead performers — Michele, Karimloo, Jared Grimes and Tovah Feldshuh — have all agreed to stay through Sept. 3, the producers said. But Karimloo will take a leave from June 27 through July 17 to star in a production of “The Phantom of the Opera” in Italy.It remains unclear whether the “Funny Girl” revival will recoup its $16.5 million capitalization, and a spokesman also had no comment on that. But the show has been selling strongly — grossing between $1.8 million and $2 million per week through January and February, which are soft months for Broadway — and the closing announcement could boost sales further. (The show has also had the highest average ticket price on Broadway: $204.55 during the week that ended Feb. 19.)The producers said that they plan a North American tour that will begin in September, the same month as the Broadway closing, starting in Providence, R.I. The tour casting has not been announced. More

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      Break a Leg but Never Whistle: How Stage Superstitions Live On

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      The return of the Scottish play (that’s “Macbeth” to the rest of you) is a reminder of the idiosyncratic rituals and routines that bring actors comfort.Theaters are superstitious places, sites of myth, ceremony and invocation. And no stage superstition has more adherents than the one shrouding Shakespeare’s Scottish play: Anyone in a theater who speaks the name Macbeth aloud, except when rehearsing or performing the play, risks catastrophe.“I said the Scottish play’s title onstage,” the playwright Lynn Nottage recalled recently. “And the next day my mother died.”When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at this year’s Oscars ceremony, Twitter wags invoked the curse. Moments before the fracas, Rock had hailed Denzel Washington, a star of Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” saying: “‘Macbeth!’ Loved it!” When performances of the current Broadway revival of “Macbeth” were canceled after its leading man, Daniel Craig, tested positive for coronavirus, talk of the curse swirled again.Daniel Craig in the title role of “Macbeth.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAdmittedly, the “Macbeth” prohibition has its origins in nonsense, as an invention of the 19th-century critic and essayist Max Beerbohm. In 1898, Beerbohm wrote a column claiming, falsely, that a young male actor had died just before the play’s debut. But the taboo took, and stories of “Macbeth”-adjacent injuries, accidents and deaths began to accumulate. (Don’t fear: If you pronounce the name by accident, you can counteract the curse by leaving the theater, performing a ritual that often involves spinning and spitting, and then asking to be let back in.)More recently, this taboo has kept company with other stage shibboleths — don’t say “good luck,” don’t wear green, don’t give flowers, don’t whistle, don’t put mirrors onstage, always leave a light on.Superstition isn’t unique to the theater, of course. But as Marvin Carlson, a theater professor and the author of “The Haunted Stage,” pointed out, theater does encourage otherworldly thinking. “There are very few haunted banks,” he said. “But most theaters are said to be haunted. It’s a very, very common feature. Clearly there is something about the aura of theaters.”Anjna Chouhan, a lecturer in Shakespeare studies, agreed: “They’re bizarre spaces, right? They’re weird spaces where people are performing fantasy, and emotions run so high.”A lot can go wrong during live performance — a flubbed line, a missed cue, a wonky prop. Chouhan suggested that actors may subscribe to superstitions and engage in some very particular preshow and post-show rituals as a way of keeping this contingency at bay. “There’s a lot to be said for ritual and routine,” Chouhan said. “It’s the way that you enforce your control over things that can’t be controlled.”Some actors always leave the dressing room on a certain foot, others say a prayer. Some carry lucky charms. “When you take on a character, you’re doing something dangerous. You’re in some way playing with your essence or your soul,” Carlson explained. “You take a charm to protect yourself as much as you can.”Revisiting the Tragedy of ‘Macbeth’Shakespeare’s tale of a man who, step by step, cedes his soul to his darkest impulses continues to inspire new interpretations. On Stage: Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga star in Sam Gold’s take on the play. Despite its star power, the production feels oddly uneasy, our critic writes. Onscreen: In the “Tragedy of Macbeth,” Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand embody a toxic power couple with mastery. Break a Leg: Shakespeare’s play is known for the rituals and superstitions tied to it. How does the supernatural retain its hold on the theater world? Beyond ‘Macbeth’: This spring, there’s an abundance of Shakespearean productions in New York City. Here is a look at some of them. The Times spoke to a handful of performers currently in Broadway shows — believers and skeptics — about superstitions, personal rites and whether they have ever had a moment in the theater that flirted with the supernatural. (No “Macbeth” actors would participate. Is there a superstition associated with speaking to reporters?) These are edited excerpts from the conversations.D. Woods, foreground, in “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesD. Woods‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf’Are there any theater superstitions that you subscribe to?Definitely the one about “Macbeth.” Definitely break a leg.Have you ever had an experience in theater that felt out of the ordinary?The first day that we moved into the Booth, the original theater that “For Colored Girls” opened in, there were things falling. In our dressing room, we put a bag up on a shelf, and it would just fall down. Kenita Miller is my dressing room mate. We both looked at each other, like, “Oh, Ntozake is here. She is here to greet the space.”Do you have a preshow ritual?I light palo santo for good vibes, good energy. And I play a lot of music just to get me in the mood. I do wear a couple of crystals that one of our wardrobe team gave us. If I need to stay focused, I’ll wear a tiger’s eye. If I want to make sure that I’m really on top of my voice, I’ll wear the blue one. That’s the throat chakra.Is there anything special that you keep in your dressing room?I have a picture of my great-aunt. Her name is Mary Childs. She was a performer in her day. A tap dancer. When I was coming up, she was so encouraging. So I bring her to the theater.Michael Oberholtzer‘Take Me Out’Are there any theater superstitions that you subscribe to?I subscribe to most of them. I broke the cardinal one about a week ago, I said the name of the Scottish play. So I had to go outside. I had to do the whole thing.Have you ever had an experience in the theater that felt out of the ordinary?All the time. Some people get freaked out by that type of thing. I welcome it. Interestingly enough, we went out to Yankee Stadium a week or two ago. We went out to the bullpen in the outfield. There was so much energy there. So yeah, I absolutely believe in it. And I like to think I’m attuned to it. I try to submit to it, embrace it.Do you have a preshow ritual?Before I go onstage, I find a place in the theater and I get down on my knees and just give over to the universe, just express gratitude for this opportunity.A.J. Shively‘Paradise Square’Have you ever had an experience in the theater that felt out of the ordinary?Never in any kind of scary or frightening way. But whenever I go into an old Broadway house, I go onstage and look at the house and think about the incredible people who have seen this exact view before me. I went out on the stage here at the Barrymore, where the original “Streetcar” was. I said, “Stella!”Do you have a preshow ritual?I made my Broadway debut in “La Cage Aux Folles.” An actress, Christine Andreas, told me to go down to the stage when the audience is filing in to just feel their energy and send your energy out. I’ve done that ever since.What about a postshow ritual?I reward myself with a pint of ice cream.Ramin Karimloo (right, with Beanie Feldstein) as Nick Arnstein in “Funny Girl.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesRamin Karimloo‘Funny Girl’Have you ever had an experience in the theater that felt out of the ordinary?I’ve been in theaters on my own. When I was on tour in Scotland, there was this one room that had a piano that I would play. One night I was up there on my own. And I certainly felt something. There was nobody there, but I felt like someone was there.Do you have a preshow ritual?I have to floss and brush my teeth before I go onstage. I want that clarity in my mouth. It’s a reset point. So before the show, and at intermission, I floss and brush.Or a postshow ritual?I do like a sipping tequila and a nice Japanese whiskey waiting for me. But it depends on the part. Sometimes it’s hard to shake it off and I’ll need a shower. It’s that idea of cleansing.Shoshana Bean‘Mr. Saturday Night’Have you ever had an experience in a theater that felt out of the ordinary?I’m often the last person to leave. You would think because of all those rumors and stories, that it would be a scary place. But there is no more peaceful, comfortable place to be than alone in a theater. It really is the most magical feeling, just feeling protected and not alone.Do you have a preshow ritual?The only ritual I have is making sure I warm up. It takes like 45 minutes. I like to do it at home. I want to not be worried about who can hear me.Or a postshow ritual?During “Waitress” [while playing the show’s protagonist, Jenna], I did — whiskey and usually a bag of potato chips. My voice doctor at the time was like, “You have to leave her at the theater. You can’t bring her home with you. It’s literally hurting you, taking her pain home with you.” I loved her so much. I didn’t want to leave her.John Earl Jelks‘Birthday Candles’Are there any theater superstitions that you subscribe to?Not whistling is one. The other one is having a light on somewhere. You never want to see a dark stage.Have you ever had an experience in the theater was out of the ordinary?At the Hackney Empire. That’s in London. It’s a place where Laurence Olivier performed and all the other great British actors. They were always talking about how it had ghosts. I remember coming early one day, and I was hearing dressing room doors close. I went up and there was no one there.Do you have a preshow ritual?I have a piece of a chain that August Wilson gave me on opening night of my first Broadway show, “Gem of the Ocean,” and I have a picture of my deceased wife. So that’s the ritual: I blow her a kiss and hold on to this piece of chain.Shuler Hensley (left, with Hugh Jackman) as Marcellus Washburn in “The Music Man.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesShuler Hensley‘The Music Man’Do you have a preshow ritual?When I get to the theater, which is usually at least an hour before curtain, the first thing I always do is put on my costume. I’m not really functioning in my part until I get the costume on. People make fun of me, but if I don’t do that, I get really nervous.Or a postshow ritual?I try to be the last actor out of the building. It honestly feels like I’m locking up the theater for the night. I don’t know why I enjoy that.Is there anything special that you keep in your dressing room?I’m very big on smells. I have a cold mist diffuser and 12 bottles of different scents. I try to never have the same scent twice.Jennifer Simard‘Company’Are there any theater superstitions that you subscribe to?I don’t say good luck. It’s always break a leg. The good news is, I am incapable of whistling. So I don’t have to worry about that.Do you have a postshow ritual?It’s either a hot Epsom salts bath or a cold immersion bath, which is a nightmare. And I have these air compression boots that I put on at home. If I don’t do one of those, I feel like it’s going to affect the show the next day.Is there anything special that you keep in your dressing room?It’s called a miraculous medal [a devotional item]. I first found out about them from my late mother. Whenever someone was ill, or going through loss, she would give them to people. There was one that she had, that was very special. We had it pinned to her when she was passing. It means a great deal to me. So when I get nervous, that is my talisman. More

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      ‘Funny Girl’ Review: Broadway Revival Shows Why It Took So Long

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      Beanie Feldstein stars as the comic Fanny Brice in the show’s return after almost 60 years.It must be a plot. Why else would it have taken nearly 60 years for “Funny Girl,” the hit 1964 musical about the comic Fanny Brice, to be revived on Broadway, when most Golden Age shows with even half a wit left in them — let alone such a fabulous score — have been revived unto exhaustion?And why does the mild version that finally made it, in a production starring Beanie Feldstein that opened Sunday at the August Wilson Theater, seem likely to prolong rather than break the spell?That I can answer in two words: Barbra Streisman.Or so Jerome Robbins, who “supervised” the original production, misspelled the name of an exciting young singer, then about 20, on a list of possible Fannys he drew up around 1962. That list, which also included such established stars as Judy Holliday, Eydie Gormé and Tammy Grimes, put Streisand, as she was properly but barely known, in third place.She was first on Jule Styne’s list, though. The show’s composer deliberately wrote the “toughest score” he could — rangy and histrionic in places, delicate and restrained in others — so “only Barbra could sing it.”And so it has been. As the show developed, coiling itself around Streisand’s offbeat, aggressive, once-in-a-lifetime talent — not to mention her Brice-like nose, which shows up repeatedly in Bob Merrill’s lyrics — the odds of a truly successful successor diminished. And without a stupendous Fanny to thrill and distract, the musical’s manifold faults become painfully evident.Feldstein with Kurt Csolak, left, and Justin Prescott in the show, directed by Michael Mayer.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTo rip the bandage off quickly: Feldstein is not stupendous. She’s good. She’s funny enough in places, and immensely likable always, as was already evident from her performances in the movies “Booksmart” and “Lady Bird” and, on Broadway, in “Hello, Dolly!” You root for her to raise the roof, but she only bumps against it a little. Her voice, though solid and sweet and clear, is not well suited to the music, and you feel her working as hard as she can to power through the gap. But working hard at what should be naturally extraordinary is not in Fanny’s DNA.Still, you can’t blame Feldstein for the show’s problems; that would be like blaming the clown for the elephants. The main elephant is the book, written by Isobel Lennart and fiddled with for this production by Harvey Fierstein, to no avail. Tracing Brice’s rise from gawky waif to Ziegfeld star between 1910 and 1927, along with the corresponding decline of her romance with the “gorgeous” gambler Nick Arnstein (Ramin Karimloo), it bites off more than it can chew and then, at least in Michael Mayer’s production, repeatedly refuses to chew it.The highlights-only approach is a problem in most biographical musicals, exacerbated in “Funny Girl” by its unusually high quotient of fictionalization. Brice’s family was well off, not poor, but the rags-to-riches arc made the plot more appealing. When she met Arnstein, she was no innocent, as suggested by songs like “You Are Woman, I Am Man”; she’d been married already — and he still was. The famous Ziegfeld number in which she stuffs her wedding gown to appear pregnant (“His Love Makes Me Beautiful”) never happened, and if it had, she’d have been fired.Feldstein in “His Love Makes Me Beautiful,” a Ziegfeld number that Fanny plays up for laughs by stuffing her wedding gown to appear pregnant.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut those distortions at least make a good story. The bigger distortions — perhaps necessitated by the fact that Ray Stark, who produced the original, was Brice’s son-in-law — avoid one. Arnstein did not get involved in illegal activities because he hated being supported by Fanny; he was a crook and a jailbird who had been gladly sponging off her from the beginning. Yet Brice, knowing all that, still adored him, which makes a far more interesting tale than the bowdlerized one the show offers, of a duped woman finally and regretfully seeing the light.That Arnstein wasn’t remotely gorgeous, and Karimloo totally is, we can allow. Karimloo also sings beautifully and, to the extent the new book tries to beef up the role, he’s got the beef to do it.Unfortunately the effort is counterproductive. The song “Temporary Arrangement,” in which Nick expresses his mounting fury, has been retrieved from the Styne-Merrill trunk, where it was stashed after one performance in 1964 and should have remained; its intensity comes out of nowhere and rips at the show’s thin fabric. A bit later, Nick gets a version of the title song, which though shot for the 1968 film, starring Streisand and Omar Sharif, was cut for good cause.More happily, when Feldstein sings her own version of “Funny Girl” near the end of the show, it’s simple and touching — not overstretched like her merely loud renditions of the big three hits: “I’m the Greatest Star,” “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”Perhaps that’s because she’s finally just sitting down with no one else onstage. (Most of the musical staging, by Ellenore Scott, is hectic.) But if Fierstein’s stabs at strengthening the secondary characters pull focus from the central one, they do help the production in small ways. As Fanny’s mother, the naturally eccentric comic Jane Lynch brings us closest to the Brice spirit, suggesting in “Who Taught Her Everything She Knows?” that zany ambition is a heritable trait. And though Jared Grimes, as Fanny’s pal Eddie Ryan, is somewhat wasted in that song, he earlier makes a fine cameo of the production’s most notable dance, a stunning tap sequence choreographed by Ayodele Casel.Jared Grimes, center, with, foreground from left: Feldstein, Jane Lynch, Toni DiBuono, Amber Ardolino and Leslie Blake Walker.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThat the sequence has little to do with the story is not a deal-breaker; in “Funny Girl,” it may even be an advantage. Nor are Fierstein’s anachronisms and vulgar jokes about sex with chorines and men in trench coats catastrophic. This is not a unified work like Styne’s 1959 hit, “Gypsy,” arguably just as fictional in its portrait of the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee yet one of the indisputably great musicals. In that show, no song was allowed to serve less than double duty; everything pointed back to the plot. “Funny Girl” reaches for the same complexity but most often contents itself, except in its best songs, with mere entertainment.If the revival actually provided enough of that, it might prove irresistible. But Mayer’s staging, which at times seems to aim for the ghostly nostalgia of “Follies,” feels lumbering and underfunded, with cheap-looking sets (by David Zinn), a cast of 22 in place of the original 43 and wan new orchestrations for 14 players, based on the glorious originals by Ralph Burns for 25. (You’re going to sell me “People” with two violins?) Only the aptly gaudy costumes by Susan Hilferty suggest the Ziegfeldian overabundance that shows like “Funny Girl” were designed to purvey.This could all have been predicted; over the years, many revivals have been attempted and defeated because the thing a revival is trying to revive is not to be found in the property itself. It’s in the personality of the necessary star: someone not nice but inevitable, not diligent but explosive, not well-rounded but weird. They don’t grow them that way much, anymore, nor write new material for them. Paging Ms. Streisman!Funny GirlAt the August Wilson Theater, Manhattan; funnygirlonbroadway.com. Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes. More