SAM MENDES GYPSY
SAM MENDES GYPSY
willrogers2008
Featured Actor Joined: 12/9/08
#1SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 12:21pmI would like to see Lupone in the brilliant Gypsy concept staging of Sam Mendes.
Usnavi
Stand-by Joined: 12/3/08
TheCharleston
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/18/08
#5re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 12:51pmWhat concept staging? The Sam Mendes GYPSY was lackluster, lifeless, and without much of a concept. It was thoroughly disappointing. And my niece didn't like her only exposure to the show. So there.
"Madam Rose...and her daughter...Gypsy!"
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#6re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 1:34pmThere's something to be said for the fact that Sam Mendes hasn't been on Broadway since that horrendous production.
"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)
yeah
Featured Actor Joined: 10/2/08
#7re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 1:37pmNot really because neither has Bernadette Peters or Tammy Blanchard.
Smaxie
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/26/05
#8re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 2:30pm
>There's something to be said for the fact that Sam Mendes hasn't been on Broadway since that horrendous production.<
What about The Vertical Hour, which he directed?
And what hasn't been said much is that Laurents hampered or jettisoned just about every directorial idea that Mendes tried to incorporate into the 2003 production.
Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
PiraguaGuy2
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/10/08
#9re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 2:36pm
ME NO LIKE CHANGE
ME WANT LAURENTS TO DIRECT GYPSY EXACTLY WAY 1959 PRODUCTION WAS DONE
ME NO WANT TO SEE ESTABLISHED DIRECTORS TRY NEW IDEAS AND NEW TAKES ON CLASSIC WORKS
Formerly SirNotAppearing - Joined 3/08
BrodyFosse123
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/27/06
#11re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 2:51pm
Kudos to Mendes for that clever bit having Dainty June whip-out that cigarette and light it after the Miss Cratchitt scene. Seeing her smoking that cigarette in that Dainty June get-up was a visual that spoke volumes about that character.
Yankeefan007
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
#12re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 3:00pmDidn't Peters lose her husband towards the end of the run, or was that after it closed?
#13re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 3:05pmI think that was a year or two after the show closed.
#14re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 3:09pmGypsy closed May 30, 2004 and her husband died in a helicopter crash September 26, 2005. I believe she had quite a few concerts scheduled, which she cancelled (obviously).
". . . POP . . ."
willrogers2008
Featured Actor Joined: 12/9/08
#16re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 3:29pm
"Gypsy closed May 30, 2004 and her husband died in a helicopter crash September 26, 2005. I believe she had quite a few concerts scheduled, which she cancelled (obviously)."
I read on this very forum that she still went ahead with some of the shows. (Although never mentioned it during)
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
#17re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 3:34pm
Dollypop:
There's something to be said for the fact that Sam Mendes hasn't been on Broadway since that horrendous production.
He directed the "The Vertical Hour" in 2006.
"My name's Lenny. What's yours?"
#18re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 5:53pmWhat did we do to deserve this thread?
Happy...Everything!
Kaye Thompson
#19re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 8:12pmI think everything about the Mendes production was brilliant. The current production is like community theatre compared to that one, in my opinion. I guess people don't like subtlety and prefer stuff that's blatantly in your face. That goes for the performances and the production itself.
#20re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 8:25pm*Laughs and walks off stage (Ala Laura Benanti). Elphaba3 reaches for Bernadette's TONY, just as Marissa Jaret Winokur steals it away.*
<<-- Help save Terminator: SCC
"The gay one?" -- Marissa Jaret Winokur on the Jonas Brothers.
"The gay one?" -- Marissa Jaret Winokur on the Jonas Brothers.
#21re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 8:29pm
I guess people don't like subtlety and prefer stuff that's blatantly in your face.
Clearly when you mention subtlety you're referring to the minimal, character-focused Laurents production, and when you mention blatantly in you face you're referring to the overblown Mendes production.
"Winning a Tony this year is like winning Best Attendance in third grade: no one will care but the winner and their mom."
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
#22re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 8:31pmFoster, come on. LuPone, Benanti, and Gaines are community theatre actors, what the hell do they know about subtle character focused acting???
#23re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 8:38pmThose hacks! I mean the have ONLY seven TONYS between them.
<<-- Help save Terminator: SCC
"The gay one?" -- Marissa Jaret Winokur on the Jonas Brothers.
"The gay one?" -- Marissa Jaret Winokur on the Jonas Brothers.
#24re: SAM MENDES GYPSY
Posted: 12/23/08 at 8:49pm
you do know Sam Mendes was interested in Patti for his production, don't you?
and Elphaba3, you really need to get a new argument other then preferring subtlety. you've trotted it out a few too many times.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
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