I’ve seen six professional productions of Gypsy, including four on Broadway, but who’s counting? That’s a lie. Make it seven if we also count the Viennese opera company Volksoper Wien, sung in German (except for “You Gotta Get a Gimmick”). If there’s one thing I’ve learned, there’s more than one way to eat an eggroll, Mr. Goldstone.
There are also less ephemeral versions floating around, the 1962 film version starring Rosalind Russell and the 1993 TV movie featuring Bette Midler — both mostly forgettable. Gypsy, suggested by the memoirs of burlesque entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee, is inherently theatrical. It’s a showbiz story at its core. Once filmed or digitized, Arthur Laurents’ book and Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim’s brassy score become hazy. Gypsy is meant to breathe IRL. And depending on the when, where, and why, its impact can knock you out of your seat.
Audra McDonald: ‘This time for ME!’
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Gypsy’s latest incarnation stars six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald in a role never before played on Broadway by a Black actor. Director George C. Wolfe (Rustin, Broadway’s Angels in America) helms the production, adding a layer of character exploration through a racial lens without changing a word from the original book. When McDonald as Rose, the overbearing mother of two daughters, says, “It’s too late for me,” in a resilient attempt to catapult her daughters onto the vaudeville circuit, the sting is painful.
She’s set her eyes on biracial daughter June (Jordan Tyson), the lighter-skinned “talented” one, leaving wallflower half-sister Louise (Joy Woods) in the background. But when June bolts with chorus boy Tulsa (Kevin Csolak) in the middle of the night, Rose turns her steely gaze on Louise.
Vaudeville’s peak aligns with the Great Migration, the period in U.S. history when scholars estimate nearly one million Black people left the South for opportunities in northern and western cities. In one of this production’s most vivid theatrical moments, Wolfe and choreographer Camille A. Brown reimagine Jerome Robbins’ famous transitional choreography in which the children grow up mid-number, swapping June’s backup chorus of Black boys for white cornfed young men, with Rose tossing out the old for the new in front of our eyes.
But no matter what schemes Rose tries, breaking into the business proves difficult, even with the help of Herbie (Danny Burstein), her loyal manager (and potential fourth husband) with a chronic ulcer. Their duets, “Small World” and “You’ll Never Get Away From Me,” are among the production’s most endearing, vulnerable moments — proof that Rose indeed has a heart, even if it’s often locked behind a stage door.
This Gypsy mostly follows the formula of past iterations in its design, with Santo Loquasto’s scenic elements rolling and flying in and out with ease and Toni-Leslie James’ costumes paying homage to the era. The one exception is Louise’s transformational star turn, “Let Me Entertain You,” in the second act, where she morphs from a caged bird to a full-on Josephine Baker tribute. The trio of strippers who inspire her— Tessie Tura (Lesli Margherita), Mazeppa (Lili Thomas), and Electra (Mylinda Hull) — deliver deliciously decadent turns displaying what makes their strips unique, with Margherita en pointe as a ballerina with a naughty side.
Despite the show’s title, Gypsy is all about what the actress portraying Rose brings to the party. McDonald arrives at full throttle and doesn’t take her foot off the gas until she likely collapses in her dressing room backstage post-performance. At once unhinged, desperate for success and love, beaten down, triumphant, resourceful, and unrelenting, there’s not an onstage moment when McDonald isn’t fully vested in Rose’s journey.
Does McDonald’s mezzo-soprano mimic her predecessors? No. Do we want that piercing belt to pummel to the rear balcony in “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” and “Rose’s Turn”? Yes. But that’s not what she delivers; frankly, it doesn’t matter. The reach and yearning to cut through the noise, while powerful but not necessarily cutting, makes her Rose that much more vulnerable despite actions that some might consider monstrous.
McDonald may want to make room in Rose’s carpet bag for Tony number seven.♦
Gypsy plays on Broadway at the Majestic Theater. Click here for tickets.
Gypsy time capsule
Tyne Daly, 1989
Tyne Daly was the first Gypsy I ever saw on my inaugural visit to New York City. We’re talking about the late 80s — the city was covered in graffiti, and the adult film houses along 42nd Street still held on. Daly had wrapped seven seasons of the procedural drama Cagney and Lacey with four Emmy Awards in tow.
Daly delivered a tough performance, evoking her TV persona and a slight New York accent, even though the character comes from Seattle. Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book, directed the production, which won two Tony Awards, including Best Actress in a Musical (Daly) and Best Musical Revival. I still have my program.
Betty Buckley, 1998
Paper Mill Playhouse, just across the Hudson River in Millburn, New Jersey, has often incubated pre-Broadway musicals and first-rate revivals. This production was particularly special, as an old college friend was cast in the ensemble. But for everyone else, Buckley was the draw. Known for her soaring belt, she had risen to the Heaviside Layer in CATS, cross-dressed in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and donned a turban and oversized sunglasses in Sunset Boulevard, among other performances.
I have yet to hear anyone sing that score like Buckley. You could feel it in your bones. In the climactic “Rose’s Turn,” she wore breakaway pearls that she tore from her neck in a fitful rage. I heard through the grapevine that she requested actors stay out of the wings during her more dramatic moments so she could fully immerse herself in the moment without distraction. It worked.
Bernadette Peters, 2003
This wasn’t the first time Bernadette Peters performed in Gypsy. She joined the show’s national tour as a child, understudying Baby June, which emitted a haunting past when she revisited the production as Mama Rose. Her interpretation echoed the Kewpie doll sensibility of decades past, albeit a bit frayed at the edges.
Of all the productions I’ve seen, Anthony Ward’s scenic and costume design was most dramatic, cast in shadow and memories past by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer’s lighting. Also of note was a young David Burtka as Tulsa and Tammy Blanchard as Louise, though the show was shut out of any Tony wins.
Patti LuPone, 2008
The City Center Encores! revival, starring LuPone and Laura Benanti as Louise transferred to Broadway after receiving well-deserved raves. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote, “Ms. LuPone has endowed the thwarted Rose with charm, sensuality, a sense of humor, a startling lack of diva vanity and even a spark of bona fide mother love.” That description was of the 2007 City Center production the previous summer. When the musical moved to Broadway (once again, with Laurents at the helm), LuPone was chewing her way through the score.
While I preferred the first iteration, Broadway audiences and Tony voters ate it up, with the musical winning a trifecta of awards for LuPone and co-stars Benanti and Boyd Gaines as Herbie.
E. Faye Butler, 2018
McDonald isn’t the first Black actress to play Mama Rose, nor is George C. Wolfe the first director to re-examine the material through a multicultural lens. Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theater artistic director, Michael Weber, cast a Chicago favorite in the leading role.
“She’s a loving mother and a tyrant, a striving dreamer … a wild-eyed maniac and a tragic hero — or maybe it’s a tragic villain,” wrote Alex Huntsberger for The Chicago Sun-Times. “As played by Chicago stage treasure E. Faye Butler, the indomitable Rose is all of these things, both maelstrom and delicate flower that, like her namesake, loses its petals in the slightest breeze. Oh, and she’s also a star. Something that Butler never lets you forget.”
I’ll never forget Butler’s phrasing, unlike any Rose I’ve heard since. Wisps of jazzy inflection respectfully pushed the score to its limits, reminding us that Gypsy remains one of the most recognizable, relevant, and perfectly constructed works of musical theater in history.♦
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