GYPSY Previews- Page 24

[Clare9]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 1:58pm

Hello, everyone! On the subject of singing, I wonder--will Audra skip some performances each week? Does anyone know about that? She skipped Saturday matinees of Porgy and Bess back in 2012, and of course Bette Midler skipped two each week during Hello, Dolly!

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 2:00pm

Audra has no scheduled absences as of now. Any absence would be noted on the show's website and on the ticketing page when you purchase. What her attendance will be like later into the run is anyone's guess, but as of now she's scheduled for all shows.

[Huss417]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 2:17pm

Clare9 said: "Hello, everyone! On the subject of singing, I wonder--will Audra skip some performances each week? Does anyone know about that? She skipped Saturday matinees of Porgy and Bess back in 2012, and of course Bette Midler skipped two each week during Hello, Dolly!"

I believe Midler did 7 performances a week with Murphy doing Tuesday evenings.

Updated On: 12/14/24 at 02:17 PM

[FolliesCabaret]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 2:29pm

I'm very confused at the narrative we're throwing around here that Joy "doesn't have enough time" to go from Louise to Gypsy... hello?? Have we read the same script? Louise is a terribly well written role. And many actresses have found great success in playing her, pre-and-post Benanti, who remains definitive in my eyes. The issue, as said, is that a lot of those well written moments in The Strip are just completely gone in this production. And I don't mean to pick on her, but I just really don't think this role (or this production?) is the right one for Joy Woods. I really think a lot of her choices undercut what is actually written. Which is disappointing, because again, I do not think Louise is in any way a weakly written role. 

[imeldasturn]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 2:37pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "verywellthensigh said: "In all seriousness, I think Moreno would have made a genuinely good Mama Rose."

Same here. She would have been terrifying, funny, and incredibly sexy.At a minimum she would have sung it as well as or better thanDaly.

Timing would have had to be in the 70s-80s, around the time of the Lansbury or Daly revivals, which was kind of a fallow period for Rita post-THE RITZ."

Didn't Moreno play Rose together with her daughter in the early 90s? Maybe North Shore or someplace like that, I can't remember 

[dan94]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 2:57pm

She did in fact do it with her daughter at North Shore in 1992. I heard it was not what people hoped, but I don't think it's a role anyone can really nail playing for the first time in a summer stock context

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 2:58pm

You're right about Rita!!!

https://ovrtur.com/production/2902999

Here's her "Some People" on Rosie O'Donnell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kixuSmEqbrE

[Tom-497]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 6:06pm

Regarding Rita Moreno, I see that Anthony Tommasini was quite positive in the Boston Globe. While not quite in the league of Merman, Lansbury, and Daly, Moreno "not only holds her own, she brings fresh insights to this complex role." 

She "gave a richly detailed performance;" her "singing was pliant, literate and robust but never forced;" the climactic scenes were "skillfully done"; and her Rose's Turn was "devastating." Although this Rose is "less daringly bleak" than Daly's (and another reviewer similarly writes that Moreno is a "kinder, gentler" Rose), that also helps explain why Herbie falls in love with her.

All three reviews I read give the impression that Moreno was first-rate but the show's Louise was a weakness ("a little too convincing in her untalentedness," said a different reviewer).

 

[Penna2]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 8:01pm

It takes a lot of talent to play someone who was not particularly talented. Gypsy Rose Lee from all accounts was a mediocre singer and dancer, but she had "It," like the song says. From what I have been reading here about Joy Woods, this seems to be the case.

I still think Natalie Wood, although a little too beautiful, was a good representation of the level of talent the real Gypsy had in terms of singing and dancing and charisma. Have not had the benefit of see the show on Broadway, but did see the TV movie with Midler and a stage production with JoAnne Worley and don't remember either of the actresses portraying Louise. Wood, however, still strikes a chord, especially her work in the dressing room scene.

On another note, I have been reading her memoir, and this is what Gypsy said about her mother: 

"I wish I'd been in the act with you and Aunt June and the boys," Erik (her son) said. "But I guess your mother couldn't have found a place for me. I can't sing or dance, either."

I said, "but she found a place for me."

"Your mother," Erik said, "must have been a very nice woman."

I couldn't help smiling at the word. Mother had been many things, but she had never been "nice." Not exactly. Charming, perhaps, and courageous, resourceful and ambitious, but not nice. Mother, in a feminine way, was ruthless. She was, in her own words, a jungle mother, and she knew too well that in a jungle it doesn't pay to be nice. "God will protect us," she often said to June and me. "But to make sure," she would add, "carry a heavy club."

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 10:10pm

Gypsy Rose Lee with Ethel Merman:

 

[kurtal]

Posted: 12/14/24 at 11:19pm

I saw this again tonight for the first time since the third preview.  And I was disappointed that virtually nothing has changed (minus the aforementioned light dimming during the overture -- and the bows have now been choreographed).  Yes, Audra's acting continues to be strong, and her vocals will continue to be divisive (I'm fine with them).  

But virtually every scene and transition could have 20-30 seconds shaved off of it.  This production could be ten minutes shorter with some very small changes.  And while those 20-30 seconds, on paper, don't feel like much...in the theatre it sucks the momentum out of the show.  

Gypsy should feel like a barreling train with Mama Rose as the conductor  Audra is doing the work.  The production is not keeping up.  

Other notes:

All I Need is the Girl is bad.  Bad bad bad bad bad.  The singing is bad.  The choreography is bad.  Nothing about that number makes me think that Tulsa has the talent to run off and start his own act with June.

And, as mentioned many times here, the strip sequence doesn't work.  And I don't blame Joy.  The audience is left to stare at a dropped curtain for way too long.  The Josephine Baker-style number doesn't make sense.  

Gimmick is still great.  I liked Jordan Tyler's June even more this time, as she's letting the super performative girlishness drop a bit in her scenes without Rose.  Good choices.  

But I was bored and distracted way more often throughout the show tonight than I should be with Gypsy.  And I have a hard time seeing the problems being fixed before opening.

 

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 2:34am

Saw this last night, it was my first time seeing Gypsy live though I'm pretty familiar with the property and I've seen the Imelda Staunton proshot etc.  I thought it was overall pretty good with some excellent performances, though I agree that it just didn't seem to have as much momentum through the piece.

Both Audra and Danny Burstein are acting the hell out of this, I love seeing them play in scenes against each other, and I agree with a previous poster that they really feel like a family unit.  Audra's Rose isn't quite the huge towering presence from the get go that other Roses may have had, and she actually feels remarkably human.  She's a single mother who's trying to do what she thinks is best for her girls, but lets her own dreams cloud that vision (I found her portrayal much more similar to that of Veronica in Hills of California than the snippets of other Roses I've seen).  And Danny Burstein's Herbie has genuine affection for her (and Louise and the others), and you can see how he's always been too kind to survive in show business.

I'm not musically inclined enough to determine whether they switched the keys for Audra or not, but it almost seems to me that they purposely set some of the bigger numbers in her break.  She has a lovely mix for a lot of the "easier" numbers like Small World and You'll Never Get Away From Me, but she sings with a kind of...strain (which I think gives off the wrong connotation, but the point is that it sounds effortful) for the ones like Some People and Everything's Coming Up Roses (and eventually Rose's Turn), where she pulls from her soprano head voice more.  I don't think it's that she can't sing the score, but they deliberately chose this placement to make her seem all the more desperate and sort of "on the wrong track".  The soprano only really comes out when Rose wants something SO badly she's essentially grasping at straws to try to make it happen.  It feels a bit like it telegraphs her ultimate failure (in a way I don't think other productions do), which adds an interesting dichotomy to just how much she wants it.

I agree that both Junes are very impressive and dynamic.  I'm particularly impressed by Jordan Tyson who I found good but not great in Notebook, as she's making some very specific choices in the June she presents in front of an audience/her mother and the June she actually is when talking to Louise or when she's trying to convince Rose to let her be an actress.  You can tell a lot about how she's learned to appeal to specific people in different ways.  Joy Woods was generally good, but I just don't think I felt a connection to her.  I don't feel like I really got her getting won over during Together Wherever We Go, and I just wish we were able to see her growth as a character more.

The strip feels weirdly rushed, especially compared to everything else in the show.  Watching clips of that sequence from other productions, they seem to have cut some lines and shortened some sequences.  I wish they took a tiny bit more time in particular with the first moment as Louise realizes her own beauty and potential that she does have.  I thought the Garden of Eden sequence was fun to watch with the choreography, but as a strip tease it felt like the initial costume she had was already fairly revealing so it didn't give her much distance to go.  

I didn't mind All I Need is the Girl and rather enjoyed the choreography, though I did think the singing was a bit weaker than other areas.  But I also didn't feel as much of a connection between Louise and Tulsa in that scene, which I wish came through a bit more.  The more puzzling choice to me is splitting up Have an Eggroll between the multiple characters.  When one of the boys sings the "have a Goldstone, Mr. Eggroll" part, you lose the idea that Rose is getting progressively more flustered so I'm not sure what purpose that serves.  

I'll be curious to see how it fares with the critics and would be interested seeing it again later on in the run.  I assume it's close to frozen (if it isn't already) but it seems like a show where actors might find more layers of interpretation as they keep doing it.

[Musicaldudepeter]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 6:40am

Audra Interview

Audra appears in an interview for The New Yorker, and she says how basically she spoke with Sondheim about doing both Gypsy and A Little Night Music, and they decided she'd do Gypsy first, so I guess we can pretty much expect an Audra Desirée in the next five years. 

[RW3]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 11:06am

CBS Sunday Morning Segment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm1umSMjhtM

[Kad]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 11:41am

Heads up, it looks like the ticket prices in the center front mezz have been lowered substantially to $176 for 12/22 - 26. They spike back up to $421 on 12/27.

Updated On: 12/15/24 at 11:41 AM

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 11:57am

RW3 said: "CBS Sunday Morning Segment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm1umSMjhtM"

Great feature. Fascinating to hear George C. Wolfe talk about the show and Audra talk about Rose and their respective approaches to the production and character.

[theblackumbrella]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 12:23pm

Leslie Uggams, Whoopi Goldberg, Jenifer Lewis as Madame Armfeldt?

[pagereynolds]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 12:50pm

I hope the CBS clips finally quiet down the "Audra can't sing this part" people. Makes me think they all had preconceived notions before they walked into the theatre.

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 2:14pm

pagereynolds said: "I hope the CBS clips finally quiet down the "Audra can't sing this part" people. Makes me think they all had preconceived notions before they walked into the theatre."


In fairness, the feature didn’t show a single clip of Audra signing in head voice, which she does a lot in this production.

[binau]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 2:56pm

You're right they pick and choose the best bits but the best bits are much of the meat and (at least when I saw the show twice in early previews) this is how Audra sounds on stage. So either she doesn't always sing like this (I haven't heard anything to suggest this is the case) or people seem to focus on remembering only the less effective head voice moments while forgetting the meat, which is hard for me to understand why.....unless it's things like the final note of Coming Up Roses or Rose's Turn that seem to be ruining it for people (but I personally think both of those moments work).

This is why I keep saying I do find it hard to fully sympathise with the view that Audra is singing these songs totally wrong, can't sing the songs etc....etc.....I think it's mostly thrilling with a few odd placements in her range sometimes that I can personally forgive and take for what it is. 

 

[joevitus]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 8:24pm

Musicaldudepeter said: "Audra Interview

Audra appears in an interview for The New Yorker, and she says how basically she spoke with Sondheim about doing both Gypsy and A Little Night Music, and they decided she'd do Gypsy first, so I guess we can pretty much expect an Audra Desirée in the next five years."

She'd really make an amazing Charlotte. I know Desirée is the lead, but it's a part written for a very tiny voice, and she barely sings at all throughout the whole evening (not that Charlotte sings more--it just isn't as noticable as she isn't the lead). Just seems like the wrong role for her. But obviously, she's not going to take a secondary part. As a young woman, she would have made a perfect Petra. 

[joevitus]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 8:27pm

binau said: "this is how Audra sounds on stage. "

So I've wanted to ask something on this board forever. A friend saw Audra in a show back in 00's. I guess it was Ragtime, but I'm not totally sure. Anyway, I asked how she was and the fried said with a chuckle, "She doesn't sound anything like her recordings." When I pressed if this meant not as well, or different in what way, she just repeated again with a little chuckle, "She just doesn't sound anything like her recordings." Is that true?

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 8:34pm

theblackumbrella said: "Leslie Uggams, Whoopi Goldberg, Jenifer Lewis as Madame Armfeldt?"

Of the three, I like Whoopi and Jenifer most, and Jenifer the best, but then I had no problem with how Stritch acted it in the last one, unlike many.

[mlledir]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 10:42pm

Saw her in Carousel ( back when she was Audra Ann McDonald) as well as in Ragtime, and she was absolutely as wonderful in person. I, for one, have no idea what your friend meant.

[ManOfLaMuncha]

Posted: 12/15/24 at 10:59pm

I was just on youtube and this new Rita Moreno Googie Gomez came up out of nowhere lol ....hilarious.  It is from a fundraiser or something in L.A. hehe~~It's a few years ago, still doing the song from Gypsy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C6H2iufYrw

 

Updated On: 12/16/24 at 10:59 PM