There’s nothing funny about the current touring company production of FUNNY GIRL presented by Broadway In Boston and now onstage at CITIZENS OPERA HOUSE. It embodies everything that can go wrong with touring company productions: skimpy sets, costumes, and routine performances. Let it be said I LOVE THIS MUSICAL (Jule Styne/Music, Bob Merrill/Lyrics) which hangs on the charisma and talent of the performer in the title role. Barbra Streisand defined the part and no one ever sang it better. I’m referring to Streisand’s performance in the 1968 screen version –I never saw her onstage. I memorized every word and inflection on that movie sound track, and understand that no one is ever going sing it like Streisand, an incomparably expressive actress and vocalist whose singular gifts suited her to the role that made her a star.

So I went in to this touring production hoping for the best, open to a different performance, a new interpretation in the revised book by Harvey Fierstein which still very much depends on its title character, the source of all show’s heart and humor, drama and glamor. I was more than let down. I was left cold.

FUNNY GIRL is loosely based on the life of  Fanny Brice a Jewish comedian and actress from NY’s lower East side whose career spanned half a century –1908 to 1951– from burlesque to Broadway, radio, movies and one appearance on TV. She was not a traditional “looker,” but instead built her career on her broad comedic skills and her yiddish-inflected delivery, most famously as her trademark “Baby Snooks.” By all accounts she was funny and endearing.

Hannah Shankman in the title role is neither funny nor endearing, vulnerable nor charming. At the right moment, she can belt out a song, in tune, with a lovely tone until she gets into the rafters where her pitch-perfect voice turns brassy. The audience, used to such vocal belting, required and popularized on shows like THE VOICE, AMERICAN IDOL, and AMERICA’S GOT TALENT, wildly applauds as she holds an impossibly loud, long note. But to my ear no genuine emotion was felt holding this voice aloft. Her delivery of the songs grew tedious, monotonous, lyrics rushing the beat, her phrasing truncating the beautiful arc of a melody. The heart-rending “PEOPLE” seemed to come out of nowhere, made no emotional sense, and felt like an afterthought.

What I want from a performer in addition to technique is something real and rooted in the moment, happening spontaneously, and alive!  In fact, I’d rather less than perfect tone than a mechanical, soul-less, rat-tat-tatting through the motions. Maybe the leading lady had an off night. Maybe they’re all tired of being on the road delivering the same show night after night, city after city.

As for the rest of the production, Melissa Manchester as Fanny’s mother seemed all in. Izaiah Montaque Harris taps ups a storm courtesy of Ayodele Casel’s choreography, though these tap interludes seem to spring up randomly rather than organically from the action. The actor subbing for the man Fanny gambles on, the worldly man on the make and eventual husband Nick Arnstein (Sean Seamus Thompson) was adequate, but there was NO chemistry between Shankman’s funny girl and the man of her dreams.

The big Ziegfeld production number where Fanny emerges obviously pregnant in a bridal gown, left me expecting– and disappointed. Instead of a big glamorous stage full of bedecked beauties meticulously choreographed a la Busby Berkeley, we find Fanny descending a shallow flight of stairs while a scanty array of sadly be-feathered chorines wandered around the stage. It was neither pretty nor funny. Too often, scenes were played downstage in front of a dull, recurring backdrop to obscure the next scene being set up behind it.  Two songs missing from the original Broadway production but included in the film– MY MAN (which would have cranked up the drama in ACT II) and SECOND HAND ROSE– should have been added to this updated production. Both of those terrific songs were signature tunes of Fanny Brice’s. They make emotional sense for the character, in that time period, and for anyone who has watched their man walk out the door.

This production may have rained on my parade but luckily, the glorious film version with its  “greatest star” lives on so I can watch it any rainy day I want. FUNNY GIRL presented by Broadway in Boston at Citizens Opera House  through February 16!