First off, everyone says it has the best overture ever, I think its flat and dissatisfying.
And the main character is a liar, a theif and a cheat who uses her children and takes advantage of everyone in her life, and then you're supposed to feel sorry for her in the last moments of the show, because she realizes it too late to repair the damage she's done to her children/men in her life?
I dunno, just my two cents
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual."
-Keen on Kean
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual."
- muscle23ftl
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
For a while I didn't get Sunday in the Park With George. Now I do.
"We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in it's flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung, the dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future too."
- Tom Stoppard, Shipwreck
UGH! This thread rips my heart out and stomps on it! I ADORE Gypsy (it's definitely in my top 5 all time faves) and IMHO, Mamma Rose is one of, if not THE best characters an actress in the musical theatre can play. But I understand that this IS just MY opinion, and don't expect everyone to agree.
As for the overture, not everyone is INTO overtures. I happen to love them, but I have several friends who feel that overtures in general are just long, boring and pointless. I especially like Gypsy's overture because I feel that it sums up the range of moods and themes carried out through the course of the show: It starts out with the haunting "I had a dream" music (which is the driving force behind the show) which leads into the kick ass act I finale "everythings coming up roses, then touches on the more sweet, tender songs like "you'll never get away from me" (sung to Herbie, but can relate to the children, in a rather eerie way) and "small World" (which shows Rose's manipulativeness (if that's a word) as well as her scathing ability to get what she wants by using her flirtation skills and sex appeal. Yes, it's a rather long overture, but I love it. Just my opinion.
As far as the character of Rose goes, there's just SOOO MUCH you can do with her. Yes, she's a manipulative B*tch, but she's a driven, ambitious woman who is passionate about what she does, or at least wanted to do. Yes, she lives her dreams out through her children, but who, in some degree, doesn't? I'm not saying every parent goes to the extremes Rose does, but think about it. I'm sure you can find SOMETHING, whether it be great or small, that your parents lived out through you. And as far as the whole "feeling sorry for her in the final moments of the show" thing goes, I feel that's just a matter of a person's level of compassion. By the end of the show, we see Rose finally realize that all of her actions have basically bitten her in the ass, and now she's left to deal with this fact by herself. By trying so hard to make a name for her children (and herself) she has turned them against her. Her over-ambition has driven away all of the men her life (Pop, Herbie, all previous lovers) and for the first time in her life, she's left completely on her own. This leaves her questioning her past (Why did I do it? What did it get me? All your life and what does it get you? etc) Whether you feel sorry for her or not, she's a woman who has lost any and all direction and stability in her life, and that's just sad. Whether you feel sorry for her, or you feel that she just got what was coming to her, the important thing is that you feel SOMETHING. I feel that that's the whole point of the last moments of the show.
Now I'm not bashing, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I just feel very strongly about this show and wanted to express my opinions.
whew. that felt good. I'm gonna go listen to it now....
I myself never understood what was great about KISS, ME KATE, GUYS AND DOLLS and LES MISERABLES
I don't hate them, but my response to them is pretty even. Not much excitement.
I know everyone praises the brilliant score of GYSPY. But to me the book is one of the best ever written. Just about every single line advances the plot and deepens our understanding of the characters. No fat at all.
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart; and you'll never walk alone.
GYPSY is the perfect marriage of music, lyrics and book. And Styne always wrote fun overtures. Can you imagine hearing that overture for the first time? More hits per square inch than any show since BABES IN ARMS.
"It's not so much do what you like, as it is that you like what you do." SS
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana." GMarx
I've always thought of Gypsy as Jerome Robbins' A Chorus Line, or well it is more appropriate to say A Chorus Line is Michael Bennett's Gypsy. Either way, both shows are legendary for their meticulous integration of book, music, lyrics, and staging.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
I've to disagree about the overture. It's the best overture ever. But the book is really really crap, cannot even call it decent! A bad mother, every child left her, and her only left behind child hated her at the end, this is actually a good plot, but the mother didn't even think she was wrong. Even in Rose's Turn she kept on saying, "I'm now the big one! I cares about you all!" And then suddenly the child forgave her or something? What the- Seems that it needs to end, so it has to end and in a good way without transition... CRAP!
Somebody sit in my chair, and ruin my sleep, and make me aware of being alive!
"I think he might like an all kazoo production of Les Mis..."
Don't say that too loud, Doyle just might use that for his next production!
Well I didn't want to get into it, but he's a Satanist.
Every full moon he sacrifices 4 puppies to the Dark Lord and smears their blood on his paino.
This should help you understand the score for Wicked a little bit more.
Tazber's: Reply to
Is Stephen Schwartz a Practicing Christian
Laurents' book for GYPSY is about as perfect a musical book as has ever been written with some of the most psychologically complex and fascinating characters ever created for musical theatre. I'm hard-pressed to name a better one. It's structurally flawless and there isn't a wasted moment of dialogue in it.
Margo is confused and speechless............
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
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