For those of us old enough to have seen her Evita, we remember it as having witnessed a force of nature, dazzling, shocking, thrilling. You cannot imagine what it was like to see her sing "He supports you / For he loves you, / Understands you, / Is one of you. / If not, how could he love me?" I get chills just remembering.
Around the same time, we had Jennifer Holiday in Dreamgirls, who was also breathtaking and astonishing, but Jennifer was an untrained accident of art, whereas Patti was a Juilliard-trained actress, who had been touring the country in John Houseman's Acting Company, with former classmates like Kevin Kline and Robin Williams. She was a singing actress with a world-class belt--an Ethel Merman who could act the classics. And that belt voice inspired a generation of singers.
Some of us knew her from The Baker's Wife, with her gorgeous "Meadowlark." Some of us knew her from the Acting Company's school matinee of the one-act "Diary of Adam and Eve," from The Apple Tree, which she played to lucky unknowing schoolkids with her sometime real-life lover Kevin Kline. Her "What Makes Me Love Him" taught cynical high-school teenagers how to cry at the theater.
Some of us knew her from the Acting Company's Robber Bridegroom, or as the young prince, Edward III, in Edward II. Some of us knew her from Working. Most of us saw her brother, Robert LuPone, create the role of Zack in A Chorus Line. They were talented--and cool.
The stories abounded that Hal Prince was a tyrant of a director to her, and she lived through it to create a portrait of Eva Peron that made the Andrew Lloyd Webber material soar beyond the British recordings.
And then, improbably, she went to England, and ended up in the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she "Dreamed a Dream" and originated the role of Fantine.
She came back to the US, and in Anything Goes, she dazzled again, this time in an old-fashioned musical-comedy star kind of way. Forbidden Broadway lampooned her much-vaunted inability to sing consonants, but in reality, she could have perfect Juilliard-trained diction--when she wanted to. She did a TV series and seemed to be on a ride to superstardom.
But then her ride to stardom crashed on a rocky road called Sunset Boulevard. The same Andrew Lloyd Webber whose music she had elevated in Evita turned sadistic and fired her, viciously, publicly and humiliatingly. Rumors abounded that he was forced to pay her off in 6 figures, 7 figures, 8 figures... He became the most hated man in musical theater, with fans and professionals hoping and praying for his karmic failure. And she became, temporarily, a victim.
Then, one night, Patti appeared at Carnegie Hall in Sondheim: A Celebration, where she proceeded to redefine the formerly male "Being Alive." She raised the roof of Carnegie Hall and told us all that yes! she was still alive and that no Andrew Lloyd Webber could destroy her. Then she appeared at Encores in Pal Joey (!), singing a mature and dynamic "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." She had arrived.
In between she played Maria Callas in Master Class and did farce in Noises Off, proving and re-proving her endless versatility. But it was the series of Sondheim concerts at Ravinia that finally turned Patti into an artist. Candide, Sweeney Todd, Passion, Sunday. Now Gypsy, playing the role she was born to play--and that all of us were born to SEE her play, and again she faces an evil wizard, keeping her from playing the star-making role in New York.
Why do we love her? Simple: her world-class acting, her force-of-nature singing voice and her Italian-American tough-girl elegant-despite-being-rough-around the edges spunk.
She is as American as...Ethel Merman.
Updated On: 8/22/06 at 10:48 PM
That was wonderful.
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