Mothers live through their daughters in
“Gypsy” and “A Catered Affair”by Lucy Komisar“Gypsy” takes place from the early 20s to the early 30s. “A Catered Affair” occurs in the early 50s. Both were pre-feminist, when many women found their dreams stifled and projected them onto their daughters. As they discovered, mothers living through daughters never works.  “They're real dreams, and I'm gonna make 'em come real for my kids,” declares Rose (the smashing, powerful Patti LuPone), the ultimate stage mother, in this stunning production of “Gypsy,” based on the true story of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. “It ain't for me! It's for my girls. It's too late for me,” But it is for Rose, who forces her daughters onto the stage to get a success she never had. The theme is a drumbeat throughout Arthur Laurents’ arresting play, with discerning lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and memorable music by Jule Styne.
Rose starts out insisting that everything she does is for daughters June (Leigh Ann Larkin) and Louise (Laura Benanti). She says, “I'll be damned if I'm gonna let them sit away their lives like I did.” But the real truth comes out quickly as Rose sings, “But I, at least I gotta try. When I think of all the sights that I gotta see yet, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be yet…” New York producer T.T. Mr. Grantzinger offers to pay for June to take acting lessons. His assistant tells Rose, “He’s ready to pay for everything -- on one condition. You stay away.” Rose refuses. She declares, “He’s trying to take my baby away from me, that’s what he’s trying to do! Well, over my dead body, he will!” When June finally leaves Rose and the dreadful “kids” act she has been dragging around the country, to try to be an actress (she would become June Havoc), an angry Rose declaims, “She’s nothing without me! I’m her mother and I made her!”  The truth comes out when Louise has turned into Gypsy Rose Lee, the biggest burlesque headliner of the 1930s. Rose is banned from her dressing room.
Rose protests, “All right, Miss. But just one thing I want to know. All the working and pushing and finagling. All the scheming and scrimping -- all the lying awake nights figuring: how we gonna get from one town to the next?....You say I fought my whole life. I fought your whole life. So now tell me: what’d I do it for? And Louise responds, “I thought you did it for me, Momma.” When she leaves the room, the Rose confronts reality. She repeats, “I thought you did it for me, Momma...I thought you did it for me, Momma...I thought you made a no-talent ox into a star because you like doing things the hard way, Momma.” Then she finally admits the truth. She declares, “I made you! And you wanna know why? You wanna know why I did it? Because I was born too soon and started too late, that’s why! With what I have in me, I could’ve been better than any of you! What I got in me -- what I’ve been holding down inside of me -- oh, if I ever let it out, there wouldn’t be signs big enough! There wouldn’t be lights bright enough!  In the dazzling finale, LuPone as Rose fantasizes about what it would have been like if she had been the star. “Here she is, boys! Here she is, world! Here’s Rose!”
“Why did I do it?
What did it get me?
Scrap books full of me --
In the background.
Give ‘em love and what does it get you?
What does it get you?
One quick look as each of ‘em leaves you.
All your life and what does it get you?
Thanks a lot -- and out with the garbage.
They take bows
And you’re battin’ zero. “Well, someone tell me
When is it my turn?
Don’t I get a dream for myself?
Starting now it’s gonna be my turn!
Gangway, world,
Get offa my runway!
Startin’ now I bat a thousand.
This time, boys, I’m takin’ the bows
And everything’s coming up rose --
Everything’s coming up roses
Everything's coming up roses
This time for me! Louise appears and says, “You really would have been something, Mother. If you had had someone to push you like I had...” Your heart goes out to Rose at she admits, “I guess I did do it for me….Just wanted to be noticed.” The mother in "A Catered Affair," written by Harvey Fierstein based on the 1950s TV play by Paddy Chayefsky, with music and lyrics by John Bucchino, wants to live through her daughter just for a moment, at her wedding. The site is a Bronx tenement in 1953. The play seems dated, stuck in the time-warp of 50s television. It’s not quite sit-com, but too hokey to be serious, successful musical drama. Bucchino’s music and lyrics do not stay with you.  Janey (Leslie Kritzer), the daughter of Aggie Hurley (Faith Prince), is getting married to Ralph Halloran (Matt Cavenaugh). Aggie’s husband Tom (Tom Wopat) drives a cab. Ralph’s father Mr. Halloran (Philip Hoffman) is a wealth realtor. The young couple wants a fast city hall marriage so they can drive a friend’s car to California and thereby get a cheap honeymoon. The Hallorans want a fancy wedding, and Aggie is caught up in the competition and a dream that is subconsciously about herself.
Aggie sings, “Sure would be nice to give her a wedding. To start her off right with a fancy party that lasts all night. But she says she doesn’t want it and I’m not gonna fight. She’s got a good head on her shoulders...And if she doesn’t want all the fuss, well, I guess they’ll start out like us.” Then a sergeant arrives from the Defense Department with a family death benefit for the Hurleys’ son who was just killed in military service; it’s the time of the Korean War.  Tom, who has struggled financially his whole life, has a chance to buyout a partner in the three-way owned cab he drives. Aggie wants to spend the money on a fancy wedding, “A catered affair with a white lace gown, an orchestra, a cake, and flower girls...” She gets Janey to go along, even to agree to an expensive wedding dress.
Aggie says it’s for Janey, but she is actually reliving her own wedding as she’d rather have had it. She thinks, “My wedding was done in such a rush, me in a cotton print dress not fit to be seen on the street let alone be married in. Oh, I said I didn’t mind. But I did... to this day. I want you to have this one fine thing with all the trimmings. Something for when the bad days come and you’re all wore out and growing old.” She’s predicting the failure of her daughter’s marriage. The wedding means reliving what might have been, as if the glamour and glitz of it were the key to a happy married life. Later she admits, “Is it a crime to want something better for my kid? So what if I don’t want Jane’s life turning out like mine. So what if I don’t want to watch her scraping by day after day in a loveless marriage. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing to look back on. Nothing but a lifetime of days and nights filled with nothing.” Like Rose, Aggie is not thinking about her daughter, she’s thinking about herself. But like Rose’s Louise, Janey takes her life in her own hands. They are such different plays, but they express very similar themes of mothers, unhappy and stunted in their own lives, seeking vicarious fulfillment through their daughters. “Gypsy.” Book by Arthur Laurents. Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Music by Jule Styne. Directed by Arthur Laurents. Starring Patti LuPone, Boyd Gaines, Laura Benanti, Leigh Ann Larkin, Tony Yazbeck, Marilyn Caskey, Alison Fraser, Lenora Nemetz, Bill Bateman, Jim Bracchitta, Sami Gayle, Bill Raymond, Brian Reddy, Emma Rowley Sets by James Youmans. Costumes by Martin Pakledinaz. Choreography by Jerome Robbins (reproduced by Bonnie Walker). St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th St. Tue - Sat at 8pm; Wed & Sat at 2pm; Sun at 3pm. Running time: 2:45 $42 - $117. 212-239-6200. http://www.gypsybroadway.com/. Photos by Joan Marcus and Paul Kolnick. “A Catered Affair.” Book by Harvey Fierstein. Music & Lyrics by John Bucchino. Directed by John Doyle. Starring Faith Prince, Tom Wopat, Harvey Fierstein, Leslie Kritzer, Matt Cavenaugh, Philip Hoffman, Katie Klaus, Heather MacRae, Lori Wilner, Kristine Zbornik. Sets by David Gallo. Costumes by Ann Hould-Ward. Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 West 48th St. Mon - Sat at 8pm; Wed & Sat at 2pm; Starting June 30 Tue at 7pm; Wed at 2pm; Thu at 2pm, 8pm; Fri at 8pm; Sat at 2pm, 8pm; Sun at 3pm. Through July 27, 2008. Running time 1:35. $29.50 - $119.50. 212-239-6200. http://www.acateredaffaironbroadway.com/. Photos by Jim Cox. | 