It’s officially time to stop comparing interpretations of Fanny Brice.

Yes, the canon is rich. There was the indomitable early 20th century comedian of stage, radio and screen herself, who willed her way into showbiz through wit and grit, despite not having the face and figure required of a Ziegfeld girl. There’s Barbra Streisand’s star-making telling of her life story in the musical “Funny Girl,” which was much more recently followed by Beanie Feldstein’s unenthusiastically received appearance in the same role, then Lea Michele’s Broadway comeback as Feldstein’s replacement.

Calling Streisand’s rendition definitive and unbeatable has long been a favorite gatekeeping sport of theater snobs. But thinking about other performers is foreign to the experience of watching Katerina McCrimmon in the part. When she’s onstage at the Orpheum Theatre, where Isobel Lennart, Jule Styne and Bob Merrill’s 1964 musical opened on Thursday, May 2, “Funny Girl” feels like a new text.

Her eyes are as big and as vivid as two movie screens. Her jaw, rattling off Fanny’s endless cascade of one-liners, seems to be made of clay. When she stretches it back into a grimace or puckers it into an impersonation of her competition, it’s like she’s molding a new face. When Fanny is crestfallen, McCrimmon transforms into a jack-o’-lantern two weeks after Halloween; when she’s thrilled, you see an electric current pulsing behind her eyes.

To these expressive chops, McCrimmon marries an equally eloquent voice, one that knows how to motivate musical choices. When she crescendos, it’s because that’s how a sob fights its way out. When she’s pianissimo, it’s because she’s stifling rage. And then there’s her sunlit timbre itself, revealing worlds of intrigue within a single note, handling Styne’s gorgeous melodies the way a cowgirl wields a lasso.

Sure, as Fanny elbows her way from a Brooklyn row house to the nation’s grandest stages, paving the way for future female comedians, the story often creaks. The number “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat,” which stereotypes Fanny’s Jewishness and treats it as un-American, is especially galling to watch in our era of overt antisemitism. 

But more often, director Michael Mayer makes the rest of the show into a visual feast to match McCrimmon’s performance. Chorus girls, in Susan Hilferty’s ravishing costumes, wear headpieces that resemble vases stuffed with plumes or sprout butterfly wings from their arms. Izaiah Montaque Harris, as Fanny’s coach and would-be lover Eddie, has such mad tap dance skills that his feet seem to exist on a separate plane from the rest of his body.

And 60 years after the musical’s premiere, it still thrills to witness a female character so unflappably, even defiantly, confident in her abilities. 

Fanny’s lover-turned-husband, Nick Arnstein (Stephen Mark Lukas), might be easy to write off as a deadbeat dressed up in a ruffled shirt and a radio announcer’s inflection, but all these years later, we still don’t know what to do when a woman is more successful than her male partner. It makes us uncomfortable, and when he acts out or slinks off, we understand him. In 2024, the achievement of “Funny Girl” is that it doesn’t validate Nick but treats Fanny’s devastating last songs — “The Music That Makes Me Dance” and the show’s finale — as laments for a world that still hasn’t caught up to Fanny Brice.

Reach Lily Janiak: ljaniak@sfchronicle.com