I've never understood Gypsy- Page 4

[jv92]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 11:57am

Well, I don't really understand you original poster. Gypsy is nearly perfect in every aspect and is one of the most chilling musicals ever written. It's a masterpiece.

[TomMonster]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 12:47pm

Interesting side note: June Havoc did the bus and truck tour of Sweeney Todd playing Mrs. Lovett.

Pretty much full circle for Sondheim...

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 12:59pm

That's really interesting, TomMonster. I think it's strange someone would not like Gypsy when it has been argued as one of the best musicals of all time. Many musicals has been argued as the best but, Gypsy is something MANY people agree on as the best.
Updated On: 12/3/06 at 12:59 PM

[bschneid76]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 1:12pm

I agree with JV92 that Gypsy is a masterpiece. How many other musicals have had 4 major revivals, 2 movies and countless other productions? If it can be put on Broadway 4 times and people still flock to see it, then it is a classic, as are many other musicals. Styne's overture, as with Funny Girl's overture are (in my opinion) two of the best overtures written, they give you a nice sampling of what is to come, and when I hear the trumpet start belting it sends chills down my spine and get's you into the mood of the show. Gypsy will always be my favorite musical, and even if Mama isn't that sympathetic the final song she sings when she comes to realize what has happened, it rips your heart out. I got to see Bernadette Peters and she ripped my heart out at the end that I bounced out of my chair and applauded..the best part was that it was my first glimpse at what Gypsy was, I had never knew anything about it until that night, that was 3 years ago and I am still directing scenes, watching the films and listening to the cast recordings over and over, it is a great show!!!

[Smaxie]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 1:23pm

The Overture to Gypsy is the work of its orchestrators, Sid Ramin and Robert Ginzler.

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 1:26pm

Fenchurch - I've been told this on the board many times but now I have the right to use it....you're digging yourself deeper and you can't win...

[allofmylife]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 1:27pm

Gypsy is considered the perfect musical in the same way that Tiger Woods and Wayne Gretsky and Rudolf Nureyev and Pablo Picasso are considered the very best of their respective areas of expertise. They all just sit there totally apart from all others, etherial, alien. This eerie difference often makes them hard to look at. Perfection is difficult for imperfect humans to handle, so we often find ourselves reacting with unease.

Gypsy simply gets 100% grading. It just does. My Fair Lady is a brilliant synthsis of Shaw's (also mysoginistic) story. The music is elegant, the lyrics are witty. By all standards, it, too, is perfect. Yet that damn ending they tacked on.... Cheating on the ending makes me deduct one point. 99%.

But Gypsy... the show's ending doesn't bother me in the same way because first we see the naked, bleeding wound that is Rose, then the reconsiliation, which I have always believed was Gypsy realizing that she would never see change in her mother as she herself had changed, and the realization that she could never have scaled the heights she did without the horrible monster that pushed her up most of the way. In her terrifying manner, Rose did create most of Gypsy Rose Lee. And God help us and thank you at the same time.

That is so complex a theory to try to mount onstage that I just can't help but give "Gypsy" that one extra point which raises the score to 100%

Updated On: 12/3/06 at 01:27 PM

[Fenchurch]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 2:22pm

Im not trying to win anything.
Im just enjoying the exchange of ideas.
If people are trying to persuade me with superlatives, it's certainly not working, but I appreciate the enthusiasm.

[xluckystar2107x]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 2:39pm

hahahaha i love bww!!!

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 3:28pm

When I read the opening post of this topic I felt like I had just been punched in the stomach. Then I read all of the remaining posts and now I feel better, especially after reading the 2 posts of allofmylife. That person has expressed the thrill it is to see the brilliant GYPSY, unequaled in musical theatre in the interweaving of its superb book, music, lyrics and staging. I, too, got to see Ethel Merman(5 times) and all of the other Broadway Roses. No other show gives me the same adrenaline rush. I can't improve on allofmylife's critique of GYPSY so I will close with a quote from Michael Bennett, late in his life: "I would like you to say that I am a direct descendant of Terpsichore, and I don't have a mother and father, and I wasn't born in Buffalo, and all the boring things that are really true about where I come from. I wish I was born in a trunk in a basement of a Broadway theatre, and I crawled into the pit and looked up and there was Jule Styne conducting the overture to GYPSY, and I heard Ethel Merman sing, and the first moment of life was experiencing a Jerry Robbins musical. I can't think of anything more perfect."

Updated On: 12/3/06 at 03:28 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 12/3/06 at 4:51pm

And neither can I.
Funny, isn't it?
Small and funny, and fine.