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Anticipation is everything. On the way into
the lobby, tickets in hand, one woman said
breathlessly to another, “I can’t believe
we’re here. At last.” Two gay boys were so
giddy they couldn’t keep their hands off
each other. There was a buzz throughout the
theatre. It was a Wednesday night in late
September—and even though Gypsy had been
running for six months at the sumptuous St.
James Theatre, there was the feeling of an
opening night. The excitement was
palpable—and cut across all demographics,
from the newbies, all of twenty and
twenty-one, to the seasoned theatre queens,
to the coiffed and silvered couples in their
golden years. And then the overture started
as one curtain, two curtains, three curtains
lifted and parted to reveal the orchestra
onstage. Oh, that glorious overture! It
swept through the audience, leaving heads
bobbing and dipping, fingers dancing on
shoulders. The show, that music! Who doesn’t
have some reference point for those songs,
those characters? And that overture bringing
it all back again, a musical memory
montage—before the show has even started,
before Madame Rose has shouted out her
unforgettable opening line, “Sing out,
Louise.”
Of course it’s Madame Rose’s show—rather
than Gypsy’s—and as everyone from Broadway
to Timbuktu now knows, this time it’s Patti
Lupone’s triumph. There have been others
who’ve inhabited Madame Rose on Broadway
before, from Ethel Merman to Angela Lansbury,
Tyne Daly, and Bernadette Peters—but it’s
likely that Lupone will long remain the Rose
that people best remember. With her
trumpeting voice and a hellbent snarl on her
lips that can just as easily curl into a
leer, Lupone bulldozes her way through the
memory of any previous incarnations of
Madame Rose. She’s demanding and determined,
to insure that notice is paid, and she
utilizes every ounce of her being to cajole,
to browbeat, to coerce you into submission.
She will have her way; she will make you see
that Rose knows best and that no one knows
Rose better than she.
What a ferocious performance! Such ferocity
of character! It’s small wonder that so much
stage time for the other characters involves
standing alongside Rose, or at a distance,
open-mouthed, gaping, or simply
responding—to her. She’s Medea and Lady
Macbeth, without the blood on her hands. And
yet, as Lupone plays her near the final
curtain, she’s also touchingly vulnerable.
There’s a catch in her voice when she
confesses her desire to be noticed; and she
sobs uncontrollably during a moment of
catharsis, when suddenly her life choices
flash before her eyes.
But as much as it’s Rose’s show (and
therefore, Lupone’s), what grips a viewer is
the seamlessness of the show’s construction:
how smoothly the tale is told, not only of a
stage mother and her two daughters, but how
well Gypsy reveals American history as lived
during the Depression, highlighting aspects
of the American character: the ruthless
ambition, the burning desire for success,
and the yearning for family and home.
There’s nothing saccharine about this
version of Gypsy—no Hollywood
happy-ever-after—and the final sally from
Louise, from daughter to mother, is a
bitter, lingering laugh.
As the writer of the musical’s book, Arthur
Laurents has been with Gypsy since its
inception in 1959, and it’s a testament to
his tenacious direction that this version of
Gypsy is both timely and timeless. Long will
we be haunted—and thrilled—by this brilliant
production.
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