Gypsy - Different endings?

It usually ends with Rose and Louise walking off together. Some productions have ended it with them walking off, and Rose taking one last look at her name in lights.

The most drastically different ending was the 2008 revival. Rose and Louise still reconcile. Louise walks off laughing. Rose stays center stage, grabbing at her name in lights, as some of the bulbs dim out. I believe you can see it on Youtube.

The actual finale dialogue never really changed, though I think Laurents cut a line or two for the 2008 revival.

Updated On: 10/9/11 at 04:03 PM

I always found the Positive direction was more suitable.

If I remember correctly, I read someone claiming (could have been Arthur? Idk) in an interview that the point of the ending was that Louise realises that Rose will never change but does accept her for what she is etc..

But I do agree from the way Laura Benanti laughs (at least on recordings) it does kind of come across as a bit condescending/hopeless. I don't think that's necessarily a problem though...Rose is a difficult woman to have a relationship with..

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Updated On: 10/9/11 at 07:01 PM

I basically agree with Gaveston2. The condescending laugh by Louise undermines the reconciliation. In the original production, Rose and Louise walk off arm in arm into the wings, without Rose looking back at her name up in lights, which at the Broadway Theatre was above the proscenium, not backstage.

I would like to backtrack a bit. During the final stages of Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim's writing of the score, Sondheim's mentor Oscar Hammerstein II pointed out that all of the musical numbers ended with blackouts or the Act One curtain. He felt that the audience had a need to give sustained applause for the star of the show, Rose(Merman). Thus, "Rose's Turn" is placed as the 11 O'clock number. As I remember, Merman just stood in place, letting the great applause wash over her. In London, the applause was seen to be in Rose's head and accordingly she bowed. This "mad scene" was repeated when the London production came to the Winter Garden in 1974. As I have mentioned in previous threads, I felt that Angela Lansbury over played the mad scene, portraying Rose as a super angry person that bordered on over kill. Tyne Daly did not overdo the singing of "Rose's Turn", nor did Bernadette Peters. Patti LuPone's version was angry, but not overly so as she bowed to the audience's applause. So, these slight variations differed in the 5 major Broadway productions. But only in the Patti LuPone GYPSY did Louise give a mocking laugh, leaving Rose on stage alone to look at her gradually dimming name in lights, crestfallen.

As for the Rosalind Russell Rose, I saw that abominable movie only once and have blocked it from my mind, so I don't remember how it ended.

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Updated On: 10/10/11 at 06:45 AM

As much as I really didn't like Bernadette in the role or that whole production, I adored her final moment in stage. After Louise exists, Rose opens the door and leaves but turns back to look at the empty stage. She takes it all in andslightly shakes her head with the look in her eyes knowing once and for all and finally accepting that it will never happen for her, before turning and shutting the door behind her for good. It was some of the finest acting I'd ever seen.

(With Lansbury, that meant Louise had to be REALLY tall, which is why they used Cyd Charisse's daughters.)

Cyd Charisse was NOT Zan Charisse's mother but her aunt by marriage. Dancer/choreographer Robert Tucker is Zan's father and dancer/actress Nana Visitor is her sister.

I appreciate being corrected on the genealogy of the Charisse/Tucker family. The production I worked on (the Broadway version recreated in Florida in late 1976) co-starred Zan's sister Nan in Zan's stead. At the time, Nan was using Tucker as her stage name. (She was brilliant, BTW, and tall enough for Lansbury to briefly rest her head on Nan's shoulder.)

Gypsy9, I think Lansbury must have toned down the anger considerably over the length of the Broadway run. (You are correct, BTW, that Laurents added the "silent bow" for the London production; Sondheim mentions this in his latest book.)

By the time she got to us in Florida, Lansbury's "Turn" was more triumphant than angry. (If one had to criticize Lansbury's Rose, it would almost certainly be that she is a tad too nice.) And her silent bow was such a subtle shift in expression that it was actually frightening. One moment it was one of the greatest musical theater stars of the day reveling in a well-earned standing ovation, and the next it was Rose bowing to silence with a deranged look in the eyes that gave one goosebumps.

I'm sad to say I used to have a production photo of just that moment, but I can no longer find it. If I ever do, I'll find a way to scan it for you.

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Back to the endings, I think one can chart the plot of Gypsy as a series of abandonments. Rose walks out on her father; Baby June and Tulsa desert Rose; Herbie finally leaves in Act II.

What's different about the ending is that LOUISE DOES NOT LEAVE. Yes, Rose and Louise fight, but of everyone in Rose's life, Louise comes back.

I can see the ending where Rose takes a final look at "what might have been" as she exits, but I think it's essential that Rose and Louise are still together at the end.

No coup de teatre is worth losing that.

^ Lansbury.

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The scene from the 2008 revival is brilliant through Lupone's telling Benanti about the dream. Lupone stops herself brjlliantly between "Madame Rose" and "and her daughter Gypsy," separating those two beats to emphasize the star and the woman Louise has become in contrast to Rose herself. The direction seems, from my perspective, already quite innovative up until that point, and very effective.

Then comes Benanti's unfeeling response, which is not at all what we are expecting.

It's a fascinating moment. On the one hand it seems to come completely out of left field because Mama really has for the first time let go and acknowledged her daughter's womanhood. This seems evident to everyone in the theater except the daughter. It also seems jarring given how warm and loving Louise has just been a moment before in telling Rose that it's ok when Rose harrowingly and shamefully realizes that she neglected Louise.

On the other hand, what does Louise's lack of vulnerability mean when she laughs at her mother? Is Rose's ultimate acknowledgement of Louise as an independent woman and star too little too late, leaving us with a more tragic Gypsy than we have ever seen?

A great risk and I give them all a lot of credit. It's vexing. That's the point. But, it's still vexing, especially since the typical promise of perpetual closeness between Rose and Louise, and a neverending familiar overbearing stage motherhood that Louise can handle with good humor, is what many of us have always loved about the end of this great show.

Even in earlier versions, there is that suggestion that when Louise becomes a star, she loses some of her heart--or at the least softness--with success. I always got the impression Laurents wanted to, in his last production, play that up even more as showing Rose having created a (bit of a) monster, but I do find it a bit too much for how the show is written--I don't feel the ending should be *quite* that bleak.

Again, I didn't see the show live with Lupone. But the YouTube clips of her "Rose's Turn" and the final scene struck me as Method-Acting classes run amok. (Which is not to say Lupone isn't brilliant--she is. But Jeeze, Louise!)

I would say that place is reserved forever for his staging of "There's A Place For Us" in the last West Side Story revival.

The damn song is titled "Somewhere". Geez!

By the way, the other correct titles for the OTHER songs from WEST SIDE STORY are:

"America" (not "I Like to Live in America")
"The Jet Song" (not "When You're a Jet")
"Something's Coming" (not "Who Knows?")
"Cool" (not "Boy Boy Crazy Boy")
"A Boy Like That" (not "A Boy Like That Who Killed Your Brother")
"Maria" (not "I Just Met a Girl Named Maria")
"Tonigt" (not "It All Began Tonight")