Review: 'One Night with Fanny Brice' New York Cast Recording

Chip Deffaa’s latest release is the New York cast album of his wonderful show ‘One Night with Fanny Brice’ The cast of one is Connecticut’s own Mary Cantoni Johnson. The show was written and arranged by Mr. Deffaa and contains a great selection of the music that was sung by the iconic Miss Brice.

Mr. Deffaa, the executive producer of the CD, thanks Sharon A. Wilcox (and her colleagues Agnes Duggan Dann and Ed Bassett) of the Phoenix Stage Company for producing this show at both the Naugatuck and Oakville locations as well as Edith O’Hara and the 13th Street Repertory Theater where it also ran.

In the liner notes, Mr. Deffaa writes, “Fanny Brice worked her way up from singing on street corners for pennies, to amateur shows, to burlesque...to becoming America’s highest-paid singing comedienne.” This two-hour musical explores the details of her rise to fame and is liberally punctuated with the 19 songs that are recorded on this CD. Of course Miss Brice was the inspiration for the musical ‘Funny Girl’ but this show delves much deeper into her life story with a less romantic eye.

I was happy to discover, as I listened to the autographed copy that the producer had sent to me, that many of the songs contained some of the dialogue that I remembered from the two times I had seen this production in CT. All of the vocals were performed by Ms. Johnson with music director Mark Goodman on the piano and Jonathan Russells on violin.

The first act opens with “That Mysterious Rag” with words by Irving Berlin and music by Ted Snyder and it is reprised in the second. “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” is also reprised later on. Other early songs include “Bill Bailey,” and “Be My Baby Bumble Bee.” Mrs. Johnson as Fanny Brice explains how “Lovie Joe” was written by two black songwriters and how she had to work around her producers to perform it authentically.

I loved both renditions of “Rose of Washington Square” and I remembered “Second Hand Rose” from ‘Funny Girl.’ The humor of the heavy Jewish accent that comes out in “Oh! How I Hate that Fellow Nathan” is a chance for Mrs. Johnson to shine, and “Ja-Da” by Bob Carleton also brought back fond memories of the live performance.

The classic “My Man” with English lyrics by Channing Pollack and music by Maurice Yvain is the ultimate torch song that Miss Brice sang about the dashing but flawed Nicky Arnstein that she married. It is a song that Mrs. Johnson performs beautifully.

Click here for more details about the cast album of ‘One Night with Fanny Brice.’