Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn- Page 2
Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
#25Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/4/11 at 3:50pmThere are people on this board who saw every single Broadway Rose.
#26Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/4/11 at 3:54pmFor all this talk of "Roses", I have never encountered a real discussion on the many actresses who have portrayed "Louise/Gypsy". I would love to read people's opinions on Sandra Church or Zan Charisse...
Unknown User
Joined: 12/31/69
#27Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/4/11 at 4:10pmMerman's Gypsy was over 50 years ago. How many of you were ALIVE then much less saw her do it? If you are going to compare the recordings, at least say that's what you're doing.
#28Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/4/11 at 4:14pm
I thought Tammy Blanchard was incredible. She was really nuanced and vulnerable and her metamorphosis was striking. She acted the s@#t out of it.
I wouldn't know about Benanti. She was out both times I saw it with Patti-typical for her. Her understudy Jessica Rush was incredible though. Very moving portrayal.
#29Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/4/11 at 4:35pm
I saw Bernadette in Gypsy about a month before it closed and I enjoyed her interpretation of the role. I also probably one of the few people who as a whole, enjoyed Sam Mendes' production. Bernadette played a very seductive & sexy Rose. The only other Rose I've seen on Broadway was LuPone, who very much played Rose as a hardened, battle-ax of a woman who steamrolled over everyone and everything in her path.
I enjoyed both ladies' take on the role, but I didn't get the sense of vulnerability from LuPone's Rose as I did from Bernadette's.
As for as the Louises, I thought Tammy Blanchard was decent in the part, however Laura Benanti blew me away.
#30Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/4/11 at 4:35pmDouble post.
#31Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/4/11 at 10:45pm
When I saw Gypsy with Bernadette, I was almost entirely unfamiliar with the show. Didn't even know Everything's Coming Up Roses or Rose's Turn - I was young, ya gotta start somewhere!
Anyway, not bringing in any expectations of what Rose ought to be like, I thought Bernadette was absolutely amazing and still probably the highlight of my theatre-going life! If Ethel Merman hadn't carved the role in stone in the 1950s, I think people would've been a lot more generous towards Bernadette's portrayal. I often read in Playbills that so-and-so "created" the role of Eponine or whoever, but I think it is most true in the case of Ethel/Rose.
BrodyFosse123
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/27/06
#32Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/5/11 at 10:19am
For those inquiring about the heights of the actresses who've played Rose on Broadway:
Ethel Merman: 5' 5"
Angela Lansbury: 5' 8"
Tyne Daly: 5' 5 1/4"
Linda Lavin: 5' 3"
Bernadette Peters: 5' 3"
Patti LuPone: 5' 2"
There you have it. Lansbury is by far the TALLEST actress to have played Rose in GYPSY on Broadway. 
#33Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/5/11 at 10:52amBrody, do you happen to have a bigger version of that lovely Squigs caricature?
#34Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 6/5/11 at 11:19am
@givesmevoice:
Here's a slightly larger version of it. If you ask me, Tyne Daly's caricature looks nothing like her. It looks more like Karen Akers as "Louisa" from NINE.
#36Bernadette, GYPSY, and Rose's Turn
Posted: 5/30/13 at 5:50am
"And is it true that she didn't have the luxury of a microphone because, at that time, they weren't used on a Broadway stage?"
I don't have the source in front of me, but I've read that foot mikes were first used on Broadway for PIPE DREAM in 1955.
The article below quotes John Kander as remembering that Jule Styne turned on the foot mikes during GYPSY without telling Ethel Merman. (It also claims that body mikes were first used by Joseph Papp in the Park in the early 1960s.)
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/22/theater/theater-musical-theater-is-discovering-a-new-voice.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
***
Personally, I think Merman's GYPSY is one of the all-time greatest performances on record.
And I was shocked by Peters doing "Rose's Turn" on the Tony's. She seemed all wrong for the part. LuPone, on the other hand, was a revelation; who else had ever gotten the triplets right?
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