The New Yorker's John Lahr on Patti:
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Now it’s the balky, beaky Patti LuPone who makes Momma Rose’s first entrance, up the aisle and onto the stage. “Sing out, Louise—sing out!” she shouts to her elder daughter during an audition, intrusiveness being her art form. LuPone is rambunctious and rebarbative. Thrilling from the moment she stalks onstage, the big-voiced and big-hearted LuPone plays Momma Rose more as a terrier than as a bitch—snapping, snarling, gnawing fiercely on the bone of opportunity. LuPone, a pint-size powerhouse, has a low center of gravity. She’s built like a pulling guard, stocky, with good legs and speed; nothing seems to knock her off balance or off course. Underneath a crop of curly copper hair, energy and exhaustion compete in her weathered face. As if to underline her character’s unabashed ferocity and vulgarity, LuPone’s mouth is a gash of red. Whether Rose is showing her erstwhile suitor Herbie (the appealing Boyd Gaines) some leg, plying a manager of the Orpheum Circuit with Chinese food, or tiptoeing upstage to shift the scenery while her kid act, starring Baby June, is in full swing, LuPone is a delusional whirlwind whose innate humor manages to humanize the toxic termagant. Momma Rose sees her children as extensions of herself; she is the kind of narcissistic mother who is always there when she needs you. LuPone’s Rose may not be more terrifying than Merman’s but she’s more astute, more believably seductive and strategic.
