GYPSY F'in Rocks

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 10:51am

Don't you agree? Let's hear it folks. HUZZAH!

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 10:55am

My favorite show.

Evah.

[Ciaron McCarthy]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 11:05am

It is # 5 on my list of all time favs. Which Rose do you guys think is the best?

I always thought it was Lansbury. That is until I saw Lupone (Who I usually can't stand). She was amazing!!! Couldn't believe it.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 11:18am

I've only seen Daly, Lavin, Robbins, Russell, Midler, and Peters, so can't say.

[Ciaron McCarthy]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 11:20am

Tyne Daly was pretty great too. Her and Lansbury both acted the role the best.

[mauriposa]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 11:20am

I get to study Gypsy (and many other wonderful shows) in an English class this coming semester. I'm so excited!

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 11:27am

I have only seen Bette Midler in the t.v. version and heard Merman, Midler, and Lansbury. Out of those three, I think Merman ownes it.

[Ciaron McCarthy]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 11:39am

Merman was a great belter and her pronunciation was impeccable. However, she was not a very good actress. Sondheim himself said Ethel never really "got" what "Rose's Turn" was about. That being said I do enjoy listening to her recording. It's fun.

[AngusN]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 12:31pm

All next week, I'm lucky enough to be playing Tulsa, in a fantastic production of such a wonderful show. I can't wait!

[paphillyguy]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 12:36pm

I saw Joyce Dewitt (Three's Company) and she was surprisingly not as bad as I expected. Actually she was quite good.

[rosekwbp]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 12:37pm

Bernadette is my favorite. It's an amzing show.

[ahmelie]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 12:40pm

1. Patti LuPone
2. Angela Lansbury
3. Tyne Daly
4. Betty Buckley
5. Bette Midler
6. Ethel Merman
7. Bernadette Peters

Hear's my list, based on recordings.

Sorry dolls, love Merman and Peters, did not love their Gypsys though.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 12:41pm

I have seen all of the Broadway Mama Roses and Ethel Merman is the best. I saw her three times in NYC and twice on its tour.Merman owns the part.I remember how excited I was before seeing GYPSY each time. I would also pick Tyne Daly over Angela Lansbury--I realize this is a sacrilege to many theatregoers, but I feel that Lansbury overdid "Rose's Turn" in her interpretation as a woman going mad, no doubt aided by director Arthur Laurents. She attacked that number with a sledgehammer approach which simply isn't necessary. The script of "Rose's Turn" has all of the pauses and hesitations and repititions and loud outbursts built in. Sondheim and Styne knew what they were doing. Anything more is overkill. Remember, Jerome Robbins directed and choreographed the original production. Arthur Laurents directed subsequent versions, using the Robbins choreography. Laurents also changed the Minsky's strip number to Minsky's Garden of Eden sequence. The former,directed by Robbins, Minsky's Salute to Christmas, was far funnier: it featured "nudes" (with Christmas ornaments covering their boobs) on a Christmas tree and "slithering show girls", ending with a giant present opened to reveal Gypsy Rose Lee; it was purposely loud and garish and the audience howled with laughter.

Incidentally, I have a huge, framed blowup of the Merman playbill cover like the one at the start of this thread.

Note to:Ciaron McCarthy --you seem young. How do you know about Merman's acting in GYPSY? Did you see her on stage or have you just read accounts by others? If you had seen her in GYPSY I think you would have been impressed, as were all the critics who noted her superb acting in the show.That said, I would love to see Patti LuPone play the part in a Broadway production, but,as has been said in other threads, Laurents and LuPone do not get along and Laurents has refused to allow her to play the part of Mama Rose on Broadway.

Updated On: 10/16/06 at 12:41 PM

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 12:45pm

Just a small note - Laurents didn't do the work of recreating the Robbins choreography - Bonnie Walker did the re-creation for the Daly, Midler, and LuPone productions.

[Ciaron McCarthy]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 1:06pm

"The script of "Rose's Turn" has all of the pauses and hesitations and repititions and loud outbursts built in. Sondheim and Styne knew what they were doing. Anything more is overkill."

Yes, but didn't Sondheim love Angelas work in "Gypsy"? In that famous interview he did with Frank Rich he seemed less than enthuised with Mermans "Rose".

btw you are so lucky to have seen them all. I've only seen Lupone, Daly, Bernadette, Buckley, Midler and Russel.

:::EDIT::: Here it is:

"I prod Sondheim to dish Merman, the star whose career was bookended by Porter's "Anything Goes" in the 30's and "Gypsy" a quarter-century later. He doesn't demur: "I've made a joke that is both glib and I suppose slightly tasteless about her being an illustration of the old anecdote that it isn't remarkable that the dog lost playing chess -- it's the fact that the dog plays chess. What was remarkable was watching a woman who everybody assumed couldn't act, act. Now, it's a limited kind of acting. She didn't quite understand what 'Rose's Turn' was about."

In a key moment in that legendary "Gypsy" finale, a musicalized nervous breakdown, Rose is supposed to stutter over the word "mama" to indicate "you were seeing a mind crack" -- a device Sondheim says he stole from Jessica Tandy's Blanche DuBois in the last scene of "A Streetcar Named Desire." But as he tells it, no matter how elaborately Merman was invited to ride the moment emotionally, she had only one question about the stutter: "Does it come in on the downbeat?" Speaking of the 1974 Broadway revival with Angela Lansbury, Sondheim says: "That's the kind of moment Angie understands exactly. Ethel never did."

We can't let Merman go: "She performed the hell out of the show when the critics were there. Or if she thought there was a celebrity in the audience. So we used to spread a rumor that Frank Sinatra was out front. That whoever, Judy Garland was out front." Josh Logan, who had directed Merman in "Annie Get Your Gun," warned Sondheim that Merman could become mechanical, but "I was smug enough to think, Well, 'Gypsy,' compared to 'Annie,' is one of the great roles, it's great literature, blah blah blah blah. And of course she did exactly to us what she'd done to 'Annie.'

"I'll tell you one thing she did do, she steadily upstaged everybody. Every night, she would be about one more foot upstage, so finally they were all playing with their backs to the audience. I don't think it was conscious. Ethel was not big on brains. But she sure knew her way around a stage, and it was all instinctive." - Frank Rich, New York Times
Updated On: 10/16/06 at 01:06 PM

[Amneris]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 1:23pm

I'm doing the show right now for the 2nd time. I love it =) I am so sorry it closed on Broadway.

[PJ]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 1:49pm

This musical makes me squeal like a little school girl. Loves it!

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 3:09pm

Re. the Sondheim interview with Frank Rich concerning Ethel Merman: I appreciate their thoughts, but after all is said and done, it was Merman who was up on stage acting her all, not Sondheim or Josh Logan or Arthur Laurents or Jerome Robbins (who Merman referred to as "Teacher" during the rehearsal period). Once they let go of her it was she who carried the show and she did it damned well (to paraphrase critic Walter Kerr).In the OBCR of Gypsy you can hear Merman's stuttering on the word "Mama" in "Rose's Turn". She sang the hell out of that number.Get the digitally remastered CD of the OBCR if you don't already have it. The only advantage of the Bernadette Peters CD is the inclusion of more dance music for the Farmboys vaudeville number and the addition of the closing lines of the show following "Rose's Turn". Such material wasn't included on the OBCR because of time limitations on a typical LP vinyl record, from which the OBCR CD was made.

[Ciaron McCarthy]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 3:18pm

I love the Merman cd. I have it. I just never considered her a great actress. She was sort of a larger than live presence. I like her voice a lot. However, I also get what Sondheim is saying. He was the author or the lyric and he had the idea, while writing it, of how it should be performed. When I listen to Mermans "Rose's Turn" I hear a terrific belt but not much heart. Not a lot of sorrow. You get that sense with Lansbury and with the other Rose's I've actually seen live.

[NCGuy]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 3:42pm

When I listen to Mermans "Rose's Turn" I hear a terrific belt but not much heart. Not a lot of sorrow.

Maybe not, but Merman nails the rage in that number (I get chills from her “and if it wasn’t for me / then where would you be / Miss Gypsy Rose Lee” line that I don’t get with any of the other recorded Roses).

[NCGuy]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 3:42pm

Double Post

Updated On: 10/16/06 at 03:42 PM

[Ciaron McCarthy]

Posted: 10/16/06 at 3:59pm

"Maybe not, but Merman nails the rage in that number (I get chills from her “and if it wasn’t for me / then where would you be / Miss Gypsy Rose Lee” line that I don’t get with any of the other recorded Roses). " - NCGuy

Yeah but my point is there is a lot more to the song than just the rage. Nobody can doubt Ethels power. Nobody even comes close to her. I just feel the song should really show off a wide range of emotions. It's part of the reason the song is so great.

[MimiLovesRoger]

Posted: 10/17/06 at 3:58pm

i was in that show in 5th grade...i was baby louise.
(at our community theatre)

[bschneid76]

Posted: 10/17/06 at 4:15pm

I love Gypsy, and was fortunate to see Bernadette do it on Broadway. I own the '62 film, and the '93 televised film. I love everything and anything to do with Gypsy. If I were a gal, that would be my ultimate goal to play that part. "Rose's Turn" is one of the greatest songs ever written for a musical. I would have loved to have seen Merman do it. It's too bad they chose Roz Russell to play the film version instead of Merman. That would have been awesome! I think Merman is terrific, whenever I get to Teacher Assist in the Musical Theatre class, I try to get the class to have a more appreciation towards her, and most of the time I have succeeded! Bless you Merm.