Musical collaboration not stripped of talent

Author: Michael Nevadomski

On January 28, the trek down to the Town Hall Theater seemed longer than usual - something to do with two feet of snow and unplowed roads. Two slips and a snowbank later, I barely made it to the doors on time - and the place was packed. An almost full house had shown up in the middle of a blizzard to see if Doug Anderson pulled off Jule Styne's Gypsy in three weeks.

He did.

Originally subscripted as "A Musical Fable," Gypsy is "suggested" by the memoirs of Louise Hovick - better known as the burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee. Though Hovick's memoirs (and indeed, the musical as well) muse on such subjects as her childhood in her sister's shadow, the tribulations of the show business and the death of vaudeville, she intended them as a tribute to her mother, Rose.

To some, the character of Rose is at the center of the Great American Songbook. Filling the shoes of such greats as Ethel Merman, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone was the incomparable Judith Dry '09, who belted and browbeated her way around stage with apparent ease. Pushy, abrasive and appropriately obnoxious, she exemplified the "show business mother," demanding special treatments and blazing a trail for her daughters, while only gradually revealing her vicarious motivations. The late, great New York Times critic Clive Barnes once described Rose as "one of the few truly complex characters in the American musical," and Dry's performance was nothing short of that: annoying, maternal, showy, selfish, caring - but above all, heartbreaking and sympathetic to the character's core.

Generally speaking, musicals with children tend to be nightmares to direct; though children possess qualities that adult actors do not (their age, their cuteness), they also have other weaknesses (their age, their cuteness). Anderson's direction just managed to walk a thin line between the two, utilizing every one of "The Talent Show Kids" at their best - even "Clarinet Boy" (Adam Joselson) - without slathering on too much cheesiness. The children exit mid-performance of the children's vaudeville act - a desperate Depression-era appeal to nostalgia and patriotism - as strobe lights masking their gradual - and clever - replacement with older actors.

Some of the show's briefest scenes were its strongest points; characters left hanging in the background for much of the performance had the opportunity to shine memorably, if too briefly, in the production. Playing just enough off a reticent Louise (Emily Kron '10), Schuyler Beeman '10 streaked meteorically across stage in a dance, "All I Need is the Girl," that all but resurrected Gene Kelly from the grave. Casey Donohue '10 managed to channel Greta Garbo into speech and song as Tessie Tura, infusing the burlesque "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" with enough energy and verve to revitalize the audience after the downer of watching husband-hopeful Herbie (Chris Hershey-Van Horn '11) finally leave a selfish Rose. And who can forget the cigar-touting manager of the Orpheum Circuit, Mr. Goldstone (David Malinsky '11), whose silent-but-hilarious gestures practically stole the number "Mr. Goldstone, I Love You"?

Despite the be-stockinged leg on the poster, Louise Hovick transforms into stripper-persona Gypsy Rose Lee only at the very end. More like a cannonball than a butterfly, Louise's sudden emergence into striptease fame is disquieting, though Kron, (whose solo capabilities were only hinted at in the first act's "Little Lamb") carried the latter half of the second act with a charismatic physical presence that gains momentum throughout the strip montage and her more provocative rendering of her sister's act, "Let Me Entertain You."

The show was produced in less than three weeks at breakneck speed.

Historically, the finale of Gypsy tends to vary with the director's vision; though the original script has Louise step towards her mother in reconciliation at the end, the Broadway revivals of 1974 and 2008 take on a more tragic leaning. Rose is left alone onstage and prideful, scorning her daughter's achievements and singing, "And if it wasn't for me then where would you be Miss Gypsy Rose Lee?" Mr. Anderson opts for the reconciliation, perhaps having decided that Rose's pathos-inducing reassertion of her own identity deserves a happy ending.

Well, after all, this is a musical.