GYPSY Previews — Page 16

CurtainsUpat8 said: "I am a playwright with published works. "Gypsy" was written about the experiences of a white woman in a certain situation in a specific time and place. That experience would be different if the character was Black in the same situation and time and place. It would be written differently. You can't shoehorn the two experiences together. It doesn't do anyone any good.
Write a new Gypsy from a Black characters experience. So many of you are just reactive to anything racial and you are so sure that any show can be done by anyone. Yes, it can.. but it's not always going to work...
Write more shows for black people, that truly show the black experience. Gyspy ain't that. Neither are a lot of other shows that are being produced today. You pick a 75 year old show about white people and you wonder why things don't seem right with this new production. Something is off."

Well said.

All I want to know is whether the marquee signs in the released Roses Turn photo are actually backwards in the show? And if they are- why?!

Dolly80 said: "All I want to know is whether the marquee signs in the released Roses Turn photo are actually backwards in the show? And if they are- why?!"

Yes, they are. And I don’t know why.

Georgeanddot2 said: "AnYwAyS.....

Has anyone here rushed this show yet?"

Rushing in the morning, have comps for opening but I can't wait til then. Broadway Rush Report says

23 people in line at 9:45am

1st person in line at 6:30am. https://broadwayrushreport.com/

I read the backwards signs as a really quick way to indicate that Rose was not actually seeing them in reality, but.I like that explanation a lot!

There's a lot of sign usage and advertising in this production; a subtle but ever-present emphasis on the American dream Rose is chasing. And I could be mistaken in this, but every figure in the various ads is white...until it's a painting of Louise.

pdjennings said: "Can anyone who’s been let me know what the actual first row of the center orchestra is? It’s showing as B on Telecharge, but there are never seats showing up there for any performance. I’m wondering if C is the actual front row due to the built outproscenium. Thanks!"

I sat in C and was in the second row so B is first.

I believe that there is a section of AA, BB, and CC rows that were removed for the passerelle.

For what it’s worth, row B did not seem comfortable. You can’t put your legs under the seat in front of you, and you’d need to lift your neck up more to take in the view. The production was probably holding seats until the stage design was built and why most performances now have this whole row available (but I don’t remember if they sold AA-CC when tickets first went on sale)

Row C was very comfortable and a terrific view. So, rows C - E center orchestra section are probably the “best” seats for this production.

I thought the signs behind her took away from the Rose sign that comes at the end of the song.

I saw the show again and had a much better time. I completely reframed and managed my perspectives about what the show is - if I imagine it to be an off broadway George c Wolfe play with Audra that happens to be Gypsy and sit close with the intimacy/Audra’s performance I truly believe it’s a spectacular dream come true. I absolutely love Audra’s acting in the second act especially and her vocals I find to be top tier with the only awkward placements when they do the strange key changes to make it higher in a couple of the songs where it feels like Audra shouldn’t be going higher.

Interesting thread over at All That Chat about Dame Angela Lansbury as Rose with comments from quite a few posters who saw her live.

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/allthatchat_new/d.php?id=2610043

Bette's Turban said: "So I need to reframe and manage my expectations to enjoy? Should it be that much work? Maybe I should just take a gummy before?"

It certainly helps me to settle in to those awfully tight seats. It’s a much better high than that experienced by half those hooting and hollering over the top fan girls on Retilin .

Jay Lerner-Z said: "“Well said"

Not really.

"A … show about white people”

Not really. It’s an already highly fictionalized account of one family. Rose Hovick was gay in real life. In this, she is hetero. Enter Herbie. Why is that okay?

"

I mean, I don't think the point was that this show is about "all white people" or even an accurate biography of a particular group of white people. But by virtue of systematic racism, a show set before the Civil Rights era means that the race of the characters involved informs everything, even if the authors weren't even thinking about that when writing it, as I'm sure was the case with this show.

I'm torn on this issue because I support color blind/color conscious casting, but wanting the audience to read it as text that this is the story of a Black show business family in the early 20th century is awkward. Old Hollywood movies and even early t.v. shows liked to flatter audiences that the segregated world Blacks lived in was just the same as ours ("separate but equal") when we all know it wasn't by a long shot. To say this is now a show about a Black family in that era but that nothing has to be substantially changed because of that--or it can all be rendered through "subtext"-- just seems to me to be perpetuating an old lie. It's fairly impossible that Gypsy Rose Lee could have won the stature she did in that era if she were Black (Josephine Baker had to go to Paris). And the obstacles a Black Rose would face be much greater than those faced by a white one, with far more indignities to be endured.

Arguments about race not mattering with this show because this is a "musical fable" are a bit disingenuous--especially since that subtitle was only added as an effort to keep June Havoc from suing. It doesn't take place in a fantasyland that never existed. It isn't Hello, Dolly!