Katerina McCrimmon makes 'Funny Girl' a warm, believable musical

A good story, well told, is playing at the Marcus Performing Arts Center this week.

The national touring company of “Funny Girl” is delivering the story of success and heartbreak that was the story of the real comic actress Fanny Brice’s life.

The role of Brice presents big shoes for an actress to fill, with the believability and charm of the show riding on her shoulders.

Katerina McCrimmon rose to the occasion beautifully on Wednesday evening, creating a Fanny Brice who was both bold, brassy and theatrically fearless, yet personally vulnerable and warm.

In fact, warm is perhaps the best word to describe what McCrimmon brings to the stage. Oh, sure she weaves humor, determination, and humanity throughout her portrayal of Brice, but it’s the warmth she brings to the character that makes the audience care about Brice and the people in her life.

Warmth is also an enormous part of McCrimmon’s strength as a singer. Even in her biggest, belting moments, the soft-edged warmth of her voice keeps her character from being a brassy caricature.

McCrimmon is a diminutive woman, which is particularly obvious when she shares the stage with the phalanx of leggy chorus girls who populate the theater scenes. But she becomes larger-than-life in musical numbers, filling the spotlight and commanding undivided attention.

In the hands of Stephen Mark Lukas, Nick Arnstein is a dimensional, flawed character. Lukas sings the role with polish and power, and uses shifts in his physical bearing, from striding confidence to slouching defeat, to help tell Arnstein’s story.

There is enough chemistry between the two to make the audience hope might just end more happily in this retelling.

This entire cast is a polished, energetic ensemble, including Mama Brice and her two cronies, seriously high-kicking chorus women, and some thrilling tap dancing, particularly from Izaiah Montaque Harris as Eddie Ryan. 

The show is beautifully set. From backdrops of New York City in the years before World War I to scenes in theaters and the posh Arnstein home, the sets are full of detail and color, defining not just the physical places in which the story takes place, but its place in time, and the passage of time as well.

Wonderfully stylish, richly detailed costumes also offer a decisive sense of the story’s place in time and the passage of time as the plot unfolds.

This is a completely engaging telling of a story that, despite its early 20^th-century setting and the fact that it’s been on stages since 1964, feels absolutely timely and remains an engaging, entertaining, and moving evening of theater.

If you go

“Funny Girl” runs through Sunday at the Marcus Performing Arts Center, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, visit www.marcuscenter.org or call (414) 273-7206.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 'Funny Girl' at Marcus Center a warm, believable musical