The way she was

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This article was published 18/01/2024 (950 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Gabi Epstein’s childhood was filled with the sounds of Barbra Streisand. Her parents were Streisand fans and often there was music from Yentl and Funny Girl belting out in the background.

Hers was a musical family, and as Epstein’s love for music and musical theatre grew, she found herself gravitating towards Streisand’s works.

“Very early on in my career I was cast in a show about Fanny Brice called Make’em Laugh and Barbra Streisand came up a lot in my research. So I started a deep dive into her many, many brilliant recordings and it started to shape the type of performer that I wanted to be,” the Toronto native says.

This weekend the Dora award-winning cabaret performer (for her work in Noah the Musical) is bringing her intimate show Gabs Sings Babs to the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre.

During the 90-minute performance, Epstein, 38, shares her own journey of self-discovery using Streisand’s greatest hits.

Directed by Epstein’s husband Jeremy Lapalme and featuring a jazz trio led by Mark Camilleri, she will sing 13 songs including classics such as Don’t Rain on My Parade, The Way We Were, Happy Days Are Here Again and People.

“This is a story of my journey through theatre and rediscovering who I am using reimagined, rearranged versions of Barbra Streisand songs. I will be singing some of my personal favourites, including People. It’s such a beautiful song from Funny Girl, a show I love, and it has meant so much to me, with a message that has morphed for me through the years,” Epstein shares.

After performing Streisand’s music for so many years Epstein found herself being compared to the legendary singer, who is ranked by Billboard as the greatest female solo artist on the Billboard 200 chart.

“People went even so far as to call me ‘Canada’s Barbra Streisand’ which was a humongous compliment, of course, but I thought to myself, ‘Why can’t I just be Canada’s Gabi Epstein?’ she says.

“This show is based on my lived experience. We all have idols and have people that have influenced our lives, but while we are trying to be like them we have to give up a piece of ourselves. I explore this through the first part of my performance in the show and then I have this crisis happen when I am not sure of who I am anymore, so I decide to go back to my childhood bedroom and rediscover Gabs.”

Gabs Sings Babs started as a cabaret concert, with Epstein singing new arrangements of Streisand songs interspersed with chats about the similarities between their careers.

When the pandemic hit, she found herself revisiting the original premise, reflecting on the way the project was shaped.

“I decided then to shift the way the story was told. Instead of telling the story of Babs, I wanted to tell my own story,” she says. “Whilst creating the show, I reclaimed who I am and the show now is a celebration of your own identity and uniqueness.”

She reached out to the artistic director of the Globus Theatre in Bobcygeon, Ont., Sarah Quick, who programmed the new iteration for a week.

“I didn’t really have a show yet and she gave me a budget and a deadline,” Epstein says.

Since then, the show opened the Port Stanley Festival Theatre season and has been performed at Theatre Collingwood in Collingwood, Ont.

This is the first time Epstein is performing the show in Winnipeg.

“This show is sort of a love letter to Barbra Streisand. Obviously, other than being one of the greatest performers of all time, she has had a great influence on me as a Jewish performer. She has such a commanding presence, and in her early years she didn’t take no for an answer, she charted her own course. My show is a way of connecting us whilst still me being able to share my own story with the audience,” she says.

Epstein will perform Gabs Sings Babs on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 8 p.m.

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca