Posted: 1/28/16 at 4:22pm
I'll admit she's way to old but to see Barbra in one last great big movie musical would be amazing. I'll support her and see Gypsy if it indeed comes out.
Posted: 1/28/16 at 4:41pm
If she really has a burning desire to do it, do a concert version- make it a big, special event. Do selected scenes. Then Gaga as Gypsy would make much more sense. Get Tony Yazback back to dance as Tulsa... get a bunch of young, name stars for the Hollywood blondes, and get some big stars to do the You Gotta Get a Gimmick number.
I can see it now!
Posted: 1/28/16 at 6:54pm
I think the real person who wants to play Rose is Travolta.
Seriously tho....I hope this isn't one of those situations (cough . . .Normal Heart) where La Streisand sits on a property for YEARS just because she can.
If she's playing coy (as she often likes to do) GET OUT OF THE WAY and let someone else do it.
Posted: 1/28/16 at 11:08pm
Tag is right. You can not like the idea of Streisand doing it, but let's not pretend that there is a long line of people, or a short line, or any line at all, waiting to get their hands on the film rights to Gypsy.
Posted: 1/29/16 at 10:47am
If Grandma was married we'd go live down south
In a senior retirement home
Just Grandma, her scooter, meds taken by mouth.
Two doctors, her pension, and neighbors saying Shalom
If Grandma was married...
Posted: 1/29/16 at 1:43pm
I don't want to fan any fires here but I do have an insider tidbit. While vacationing I met an executive from Universal WAY back in 2011 when they first optioned the project. The executive said everyone at Universal was "excited" to do it, including Sondheim and they had Arthur's blessing, but the major kink in the works was Streisand. "She is hesitant, and wants to direct it as well" is what he said.
And why shouldn't other actresses be interested? Gypsy's themes are just as relevant as they ever were. . . and it's a helluva role!
Updated On: 1/29/16 at 01:43 PM
Posted: 1/29/16 at 6:13pm
I believe the information about Streisand at one point wanting to direct as well as star in a film version of Gypsy has been talked about publicly for years?
One possible way for her to play Rose would be to alter the story and make Rose the grandmother of the girls who wound up having to raise them after their parents died or abandoned them. Rose could be someone who gave up her own dreams of stardom to be a conventional housewife and mother but always regretted it and now sees her grandkids as a second chance to live her dream through them. It would take some reworking of the story and lyrics but the basic motivation of the character and major point of the story might still work.
Posted: 1/29/16 at 8:48pm
^^^^ Sing, everything you propose is possible, but you take a more or less universal story (a parent lives through her children) and turn it into a narrow tale (a GRANDparent does the same). Also, and though she doesn't admit it even to herself until "Rose's Turn", what drives the story is Rose's blind belief that she STILL has "it". Not impossible, but considerably harder to believe if Rose is the grandmother rather than the mother.
Above, I was told that "any musical theater fan" would want to see Streisand do a film of GYPSY. I say any true fan should know better.
Posted: 1/30/16 at 10:44am
Maybe I could see it onstage, even with her advanced age. Maybe there Barba could suspend disbelief, albeit not for eight shows a week. But on camera? No.
(Honestly, if you want something hot and marketable, you cast Madonna as Rose and Gaga as Louise, and let Barbra direct. Yes, I get it, they're not Merman, and one would lose the singing entirely, but we're used to that by now thanks to the original film, and you wanna bet you couldn't get a ticket?)
Posted: 1/30/16 at 4:05pm
Even in her 70's..she will still kill as Mama Rose.
At her age, she looks younger than Merman, Rosiland Russel and even Angela Lansbury when they did the role. Why are you all such aegists? (damn if this were about race you'd all be so politically correct)
Hamlet is supposed to be 17 but he is usually played by a 30 or 40 year old. (Mel Gibson, Laurence Olivier) to name a few.
I will be the first one to buy a ticket to this movie and I hope that it happens. There is not much that excites me but Barbara as Mama Rose does!!
Posted: 1/30/16 at 4:23pm
Hamlet is supposed to be 17 but he is usually played by a 30 or 40 year old. (Mel Gibson, Laurence Olivier) to name a few.
Hamlet's age is a good discussion point, tbh.
Posted: 1/30/16 at 4:28pm
Has BBC America shown Staunton yet? Thx
Posted: 1/30/16 at 5:15pm
Don't know how much of the Gypsy story is real so why not make up a little more-it is the movies after all. Surely a little fiddle with the script and Louise and June could just be a part of the troops picked up along the way, not necessarily her real siblings-Mama could be what all the kids called her. Roses' age would then not be a real problem. Herbie has never been a spunk just someone looking for comfort and a family so elderly/craggy against matronly Ms Streisand would work and their romance,on the stage anyway, is just implied- and always verbal not consumated.
However it's done can't wait to see it.
SL.....x
Posted: 1/30/16 at 5:15pm
I hope this happens with all my heart!
Posted: 1/30/16 at 8:10pm
goldenboy said: "Even in her 70's..she will still kill as Mama Rose.
At her age, she looks younger than Merman, Rosiland Russel and even Angela Lansbury when they did the role. Why are you all such aegists? (damn if this were about race you'd all be so politically correct)
Hamlet is supposed to be 17 but he is usually played by a 30 or 40 year old. (Mel Gibson, Laurence Olivier) to name a few.
I will be the first one to buy a ticket to this movie and I hope that it happens. There is not much that excites me but Barbara as Mama Rose does!!
"
You either need a new TV or some serious cataract surgery. I worked on GYPSY after Broadway and, though Streisand looks good as 70-year-old ladies go, she does NOT look younger than Angela did FORTY p*uckING years ago!
Jesus, Streisand fans are delusional! Yes, she has nice hair and minimal sun damage. She looks like any well-maintained Malibu grandmother. She does not look like a mother of 8-10-year-olds in the 1930s.
Posted: 1/30/16 at 8:14pm
Sweet Lips, if the script were rewritten as you describe it, then the coming and goings of Louise and June would have the same emotional impact as the comings and goings of Tulsa and Agnes. I.e., none.
And we're all still pretending that Streisand's last TV special (at the Village Vanguard) showed her with the vocal ability to still sing the GYPSY score. It did not.
Streisand as Madame Rose has all the makings of a camp classic.
Posted: 1/31/16 at 12:30am
GavestonPS said: "And we're all still pretending that Streisand's last TV special (at the Village Vanguard) showed her with the vocal ability to still sing the GYPSY score. It did not.
Streisand as Madame Rose has all the makings of a camp classic."
As a Sreisand admirer for decades, I sincerely hope you're not right about it turning into camp, but have to agree with you about the state of her voice. For me that's a much bigger worry than whether she'll look her actual age on screen.
Question: If Steisand is determined to make one more musical with which to bookend her screen career, what's out there besides Gypsy that would be suitable for her--her voice as it is now, her skills as an actor and comedian, and something where her actual real-life age just won't present so many problems?
Posted: 1/31/16 at 1:34am
I had a What?
Updated On: 1/31/16 at 01:34 AM
Posted: 1/31/16 at 2:32am
Posted: 1/31/16 at 11:36am
Tag said: "^Sunset Boulevard?"
Good one! She'd bookend her career playing "The Greatest Star"--very appropriate--though perhaps in this case not in such an attractive light. It's certainly a great diva showpiece, the kind she deserves.
Here's another idea. Streisand of all people could commission just about anybody to create a new vehicle designed especially for her--as with "Funny Girl." She could probably have her pick of composers. How about a musical version of "The Normal Heart"? Don't laugh, I'm almost serious. Think what Lin-Manuel Miranda or Jake Heggie or Stephen Sondheim could do with Dr. Brookner's great tirade. It could be thrilling outpouring of rage of operatic proportions! (And Sreisand could end her career in musicals playing a hero rather than a monster or a freak.)
Posted: 1/31/16 at 2:38pm
An original project would be even riskier. IMO.
It’s fun to think about ‘Streisand’s Norma Desmond-esque RETURN to a big budget musical for the first time in decades.’ For which Streisand is showered with awards and praise. What could be more Hollywood than that?
But the realities are quite different. Streisand’s name hasn’t meant anything at the box office for a long time. She’s remained out of the game, and out of the public eye for too long and her last film The Guilt Trip was a critical flop and barely broke even at the box office. I think by putting Streisand and Seth Rogan together they were hoping for some sort of magic, and to reignite Streisand's status as a relevant Hollywood player, but as Bruce Vilanch said “it was not a fortuitous paring.” And a pretty lousy movie.
Once in an interview for Theatre Talk (on whether or not Streisand could do it) Arthur Laurents said "Rose is Ageless" so if he thought Streisand could do it thats good enough for me I guess. That was also a few years ago now. They can also do wonders now in terms of sweetening her voice in the recording studio and making her look luminous in front of the cameras. (Think Jessica Lange in American Horror Story: Freak Show when they did Elsa's flashbacks, she looked stunning!)
But you can’t deny this has been pattern in her career that makes it downright frustrating to be a Streisand fan. She hesitates and the chance is gone. We are then subjected to mundane “safe” comedies that are beneath her talent.
Posted: 1/31/16 at 4:06pm
Uhm, I think you're all considering Streisand's name bigger than it is, the only people she will bring to the cinema are the same old queens that would already go just to see a "Gypsy" movie. And remember that they have to sell the movie all around the world, not just US...
Posted: 1/31/16 at 4:08pm
And that's why she wants Gaga as Louise. You're all acting like Streisand wants to play every role herself.
