Gypsy 2002 Revival

I have been reading Arthur Laurents' book, and he talks pretty negatively about the 2002 revival, especially the set design and direction. Who here saw it, and what did you think?

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I saw it very near the end of the run and it wasn't very good then, either. Bernadette's voice was SHOT! She just couldn't sing the role. The role seemed too big for her...and I love Bernadette! The Patti version a few years later was MUCH better.

Updated On: 1/1/14 at 05:44 PM

Laurents' comments RE: set design do not make any sense given the 2008 production sets were just as bad. He complained that a certain scene did not work "without walls" - how does he solve it in the 2008 production that also hypocritically had no walls? He cuts the scene :-/.

I don't know how I feel about Bernadette's performance. I enjoy the cast recording and her Tony performance is one of my favourites, but there is a bootleg video of her early into the run and she kind of just stood around and shouted, as if shouting was the only way the audience could hear her or take her seriously. I want to catch the Lincoln archive video soon though that was taken a bit later on.

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Updated On: 1/1/14 at 07:07 PM

What didn't help was Laurents "offered suggestions" to Mendes on how to "improve" his production, and Mendes didn't take it. Therefore, Laurents made his tongue extra sharp when talking about this revival.