#1
Posted: 5/18/03 at 6:11pm
I saw Gypsy last night and really enjoyed. I did not like our seats but I did not order them. They were in orchestra but a bit back. I think Bernadette Peters was wonderful as Mama Rose. She really is a talented actress. I liked her better than Tyne Daley. Peters has long specialized in playing darlings of various degrees, and Gypsy Rose Lee and June Havoc say that their real-life Mama Rose was a cutie patootie with killer instincts. So being very tiny and cute, she was dead on to me. Ethel Merman cut the template of Mama Rose as a bulldozer and after her Tyne Daly and Rosalind Russell etc. All formidable woman but I think Bernadette Peters is right up there with them. I like the way they started the show on an almost bare staage. Mendes and designer Ward emphasize the musical's backstage nature by exposing the machinery that makes theater magic. Also, whenever Rose's kids, June and Louise perform theier vaudeville act, a gilt proscenitum arch drops into position, leaving room on the sides to disclose mama egging them on from the wings, amid lounging stage hands and kibitzers.
I would have liked B.P. to have taken off the hat after the first act but wearing a short copper blonde coif, her fragile features powered into a hard white, B.P. reminds me of a young Better Davis. This whole make made her look like she was a handful and someone to contend with. John Dossett's easy going Herbie and Tammy Blanchard's wan and breathy Louise brightens up when she finally becomes Gyspy Rose Lee. Other performers who were notable was the appealing little Heather Tepepe's toe-dancing baby June was very cute but my favorite scene was the hard-boiled hilarity of the three seasoned strippers, Tesie Tura, Mazeppa and Electra; Heather Lee, Kate Buddke and Julie Halston, singing "We Got to Get a Gimmick, to me was a hilarious show stopper.
Waited for autographs and we got quite a few. Bernadette finally came out and was very warm and gracious. She is very petite.
I would have liked B.P. to have taken off the hat after the first act but wearing a short copper blonde coif, her fragile features powered into a hard white, B.P. reminds me of a young Better Davis. This whole make made her look like she was a handful and someone to contend with. John Dossett's easy going Herbie and Tammy Blanchard's wan and breathy Louise brightens up when she finally becomes Gyspy Rose Lee. Other performers who were notable was the appealing little Heather Tepepe's toe-dancing baby June was very cute but my favorite scene was the hard-boiled hilarity of the three seasoned strippers, Tesie Tura, Mazeppa and Electra; Heather Lee, Kate Buddke and Julie Halston, singing "We Got to Get a Gimmick, to me was a hilarious show stopper.
Waited for autographs and we got quite a few. Bernadette finally came out and was very warm and gracious. She is very petite.
"Life is not measured by the number
of breaths we take, but by moments
that take our breath away."
"Life isn't about how to survive the storm,
but how to dance in the rain."
hee hee!
