gypsy reviews — Page 3

i also got the impression that Brantley doesnt take "summer theater" as seriously.

but what care i, for tinsel...or glamour? i'm gonna see GYPSY two more times!!!!

Talkin' Broadway:

"So it’s all the more curious that LuPone has dared to put no unique stamp on the part. Shying away from the likes of Rosalind Russell’s lizard-tongued film Rose, Bette Midler’s brash-but-bright take in the 1993 TV movie, and Peters’s china-doll sexpot, LuPone plants herself firmly and unapologetically at the center of a world in which nothing and no one else exists.

This is not necessarily an ill-conceived take. Rose does admit, after her stunning nervous breakdown of a musical tour de force, “Rose’s Turn,” that everything she claimed to do for her daughters she truly did for herself. But with her portrayal here, LuPone raises self-involvement to an art form, and not in ways that reveal many new facets of the unthinkable monster inhabiting the vaudeville circuits.

Rather than eradicating the inflections and mannerisms that typically define a Patti LuPone Performance, the star revels in them all as they alone are enough to define Rose. Chewing on lyrics as if they were Thanksgiving dinner, making precisely articulated arm motions completely disconnected from lyrical content, dissolving lengthy sustained notes into haunting screams of physical pain at the end of both acts, and forging a connection with the audience before acknowledging anyone else onstage, LuPone does not display any particular desire to become Rose - she’s trying to make Rose become her."

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/07_15_07.html

i wish that i could take everyone in the world to see GYPSY!

Those who avoid this performance due to Brantley's ambivalence do so at their own loss.

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It's possible to have reservations about the LuPone Rose, as some of us did, even major one, and still have a wonderful, wildly appreciative good time at this mostly thrilling production. The board tendency toward black and white thinking has permeated this discussion, the two camps at war, embracing love it or leave it (the it Lupone) mindset that doesn't have anything to do with making critical observations or enjoying a given show. We can gasp, stand and cheer, and still have questions about what she does and why.

I was in pretty much in awe of the LuPone Lovett, after swearing the role belonged forever to Lansbury. I was certainly riveted to her Rose, and ultimately put more in the positive category than the negative. Yet I also understand just about all of the issues taken with her interpretation, from her strangely contemporary, unchanging Louise Brooks bob to her manipulation of the score's tempos -- most bizarre in "Mr. Goldstone," which she seems to want to turn into "Getting Married Today." Saturday night the orchestra couldn't keep up. I was bothered that we stepped outside of the show to take note.

But the Goldstone thing is sort of a major part of the glass half full/glass empty aspect for me. Speed and pace are powerful elements at play here, and employing abrupt changes in pace make it a performance that throws you of, both in interpretation and in execution. I felt she was racing through the end of he first act -- the Granzinger scenes. And then she pulls herself up, and drops an "Everything's Coming up Roses" with a ferocity that justified most of the rapid-fire pace that came before. (When she tears up June's note -- 1500 people are in her hands, suddenly, powerfully.) She seems to have set Rose's metronome at a high speed, and uses it as the character "pulse."

If I have one overall issue, admittedly more in hindsight than while watching, it's the sense of LuPone manipulating a Streisand-like design for the characterization, a schematic take that feels too thought out. At key points I was aware of her homework, her use of extraordinary technique for momentary effect -- the suddenly dropped pitch, the double takes, the pushed vocals for surprise. The adjustments of pace. Sometimes, it feels inspired and a surprise. Sometimes, it just feels like an actor's bag of trickery on display. That's what acting is, a bag of tricks, I know that. Maybe she really hasn't had time to fully synthesize all of the elements. I had a feeling the work she delivered last night was probably more seamless than that reviewed a week before.

The bottom line has been stated. She's a major artist, not just a "diva," and she's delivering a performance that cannot be missed by any musical theater fan. I've admired Lansbury, Daly, Peters, and at least apprecaited seeing Buckley. I would've missed a major take on Rose had I stayed away from this one.

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Updated On: 7/22/07 at 09:11 PM

I thought he said, through a megaphone, "HEY! This is a musical COMEDY, folks!" And make sure we felt that (as he did with Tyne Daly, by the way -- who was also funny.) No argument. We do have a good time with this production, so that the darker moments sneak up. Isn't it just an extraordinary text? So lean, but so full?

BIG SPOILER

I also wondered if the playing of the final scene with Gypsy was his decision or LuPone's -- her breakdown in her daughter's arms made me sit up in my seat. And more. I'm still stunned by that coda after Rose's Turn. Isn't it fascinating -- the damned show keeps evolving, 50 years later. It's that good, that brilliant, the material. Let every great actress have a shot.

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Great post, as usual, Auggie. And is it really possible to SPOIL Gypsy? HATE MAIL? Are you serious?

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The breakdown gives the final scene far, far more weight, in a way making "Rose's Turn" means to an emotional end, a part of an overall build. I think most Roses find the arc builds to that number, the catharsis happening within "Rose's Turn." This interpretation in effects suggests that only by exorcising her demons in "Turn" can she finally reach a cathartic meltdown in her daughter's arms. I think it's a radical new view of the ending, and I guess I'm surprised more hasn't been said.

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