Gypsy - The Strip

She didn't do any talking in the original; that came with Arthur Laurents' rewrites for the Lansbury revival and subsequent productions. Quoting Laurents at the time on the subject: "I always felt the girl should talk, but Jerry [Robbins] was never willing to try it. In London, I wrote lines for her and through her talk you can see her evolve as a woman." It is still debated today whether or not this was an improvement.

I've personally always felt, if one is going to include the dialogue, that it should be played with an arc of growth, and nobody I've seen perform it seems to nail that; don't get me wrong, they get what it's supposed to be in theory, but I think they just don't handle it very well in practice, and part of that, I feel, is because, much like his attempt at "timeless" kid gangster slang for West Side Story, Arthur just wasn't very good at writing gag material for a stripper whose gimmick was sophistication and wit.

[At the risk of pushing the character into camp, I've always felt the later lines should be delivered a la Mae West, when she is not only confident in her sexuality but has picked up how to deliver "the same burlesque crap they've been doing since the year one."]

Updated On: 12/18/18 at 10:23 AM

I'm probably in a very small minority, but I always liked Cynthia Gibb's transformation from Louise into Gypsy Rose Lee in the Midler version (maybe it helped that those Bob Mackie gowns, even the relatively simple first blue one, were pretty stunning on her).

I think Benanti also was hampered by the design/staging of that production. Instead of a passarelle that would have allowed her to come further into the audience and really feel like she was working the room she just had a flat line to march back and forth across and a fourth wall that, even though she was speaking through it, did still keep her disconnected from the audience.

I've never seen these pictures of Sandra Church before. Thanks so much for posting Carlos.

Dollypop said: "In the Lansbury version, Zan Cherise (sp) was magnificent. She was aided by a runway that propelled out into the audience."

When we re-mounted the Lansbury production in South Florida, Louise was played by Charisse's (half?) sister, Nana Tucker. The moveable runway played itself; I don't know about on Broadway, but our houses didn't have computerized tracks. The runway was pushed downstairs by two stagehands hidden in black boxes at the upstage corners. The black boxes hid the stagehands, but also greatly obscured their vision.

During the tech rehearsal, they pushed the runway set downstairs, over the apron and into the orchestra pit. Nana quite calmly stepped backward off the unit before it fell, but I've never seen pit musicians move so fast! (There were no injuries and small, nearly invisible guard rails were install along the apron before the dress rehearsal.)

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Nana--at the grand old age of 19, mind you--not only nailed the growing confidence and maturity, she got belly laughs in the process. She practically dared Angela to top her; and, of course, Angela proceed to do so.

(Until I saw this thread, I didn't realize Louise hadn't always had dialogue in "The Strip". To me it is essential to give one a sense of what sort of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee was, even if the portrait is mythical.)

My personal favorite performance: there was a wardrobe malfunction during one of the costume changes and the orchestra had to vamp while two dressers came onstage to fix whatever was preventing Nana from removing one costume before she stepped into the next.

Meanwhile, Nana Tucker ad libbed, "My clothes don't want to come off me. Can you blame them?"

It brought down the house! That she was able to manage that is indicative of how specific each of her "strips" was and how carefully she had thought through the growth of the character during the number.