|
 TM
The Driven Women of “Gypsy”
Mount a Smashing Revival
“Let me entertain you!” – and with grit and
style, they do!
By Lucy Komisar
 The best theater is about real-life desires and angst.
A woman lives through her daughters because she's never had the chances
she's giving them. "I was born too soon and I started too late," she
complains.
It may be an old story, but when Sam Mendes chronicles
Mama Rose's campaign to make star entertainers of June and Louise, it is
powerful and exhilarating.
The story of "Gypsy" - for Louise became Gypsy Rose
Lee, the burlesque "Park Avenue stripper" - is also enormously entertaining,
narrated in vaudeville-style vignettes which Mendes directs with verve and
wit.
Bernadette Peters' searing renditions of songs that
tell of her obsession makes you sympathize and identify with her. You root
for her when she sings "Some People," on fighting the boredom of life.
Peters' Rose is a seductive charmer in the service of a mission; she is a
nervy, determined impresario. But she is no monster stage mother. (The
monster mother is a sexist stereotype that deserves to be retired.) I liked
this Rose a lot.
 What can you do with a children's act? Mendes plays to
its hokeyness in funny, campy send-ups of flag-waving tap dancing. Heather
Tepe is comic as June the child star in glittery costume and screechy voice.
(June would become actress June Havoc.)
There are funny hi-jinks when Rose and her young troop
- the girls now joined by boy dancers - flummox the unpaid landlord (Brooks
Ashmanskas) to the tune of "Mr. Goldstone, I Love You."
 You feel the melancholy - perhaps more than Rose does!
- when, refusing to share her attentions, she gives up Herbie (John Dossett),
the salesman she had persuaded to agent the act and who became her lover.
The other "stars" of this musical are writer Arthur
Laurents, composer Jule Styne, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, here all at
their best, the work as fresh as when it first played Broadway in 1959.
These are melodies and lyrics you remember! In addition to "Some People,"
the crowd-pleasing favorites are "Small World," "You'll Never Get Away From
Me," and "Everything's Coming Up Roses."
Mendes uses a lot of Jerome Robbins's original,
effervescent choreography. David Burtka as Tulsa and Tammy Blanchard
(Louise) do a moving, elegant pas de deux of unrequited love, "All I Need Is
the Girl."
 A show-stopper is the brazen "You Gotta Get a Gimmick,"
a droll advice number by three strippers - Heather Lee, Kate Buddeke and
Gayton Stock - with electrifying lights giving new meaning to garishness.
 Were either of Rose's children grateful? Since it's a
true story, it couldn't get a Hollywood ending. When June decides to leave
vaudeville, Rose makes a star of her less talented daughter. Louise may have
had little talent, but Blanchard shimmers with it. And Louise outdoes her
mother in toughness and egotism. That's the true Hollywood ending.
"Gypsy." Book by Arthur Laurents. Music by Jule Styne.
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Suggested by the Memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee.
Directed by Sam Mendes. Starring Bernadette Peters, Tammy Blanchard, John
Dossett, Kate Reinders, Brooks Ashmanskas, Kate Buddeke, David Burtka,
Heather Lee, Michael McCormick, William Parry, Heather Tepe, Addison Timlin,
Gayton Scott. Choreography by Jerome Robbins.
Sam S. Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44 St. Mon-Sat 8, Wed &
Sat 2. Running time: 2:45. $61.25-$101.25. 212-239-6200. Web site at
http://www.gypsythemusical.com.
Images by Joan Marcus
Back to
TravelLady Magazine |
