Broadway: March 2008 Archives

"Gypsy" starring Patti LuPone opened on Broadway this week and most critics agree that the great LuPone triumphs in a major way. I saw Patti on Broadway in "Master Class," in her one woman show "Patti LuPone on Broadway" and own the soundtrack to her "Sunset Boulevard" on the London stage, a show from which she was cruelly dumped before Broadway in favor of Glenn Close. But "Gypsy" is the show I've always wanted to see her in and hope to make it to New York later this year to do just that!

Here are some of her reviews:

New York Times: Watch out, New York. Patti LuPone has found her focus. And when Ms. LuPone is truly focused, she's a laser, she incinerates. Especially when she's playing someone as dangerously obsessed as Momma Rose in the wallop-packing revival of the musical "Gypsy," which opened on Thursday night at the St. James Theater...When Ms. LuPone delivers "Rose's Turn," she's building a bridge for an audience to walk right into one woman's nervous breakdown. There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be. .

Los Angeles Times: This is not the brassy tour de force that we can reconstruct from the cast recording of Ethel Merman's patented original. And one shouldn't expect Angela Lansbury's tragicomic finesse, Tyne Daly's working-class realism or Bernadette Peters' sex-kittenish wiles, to cite the other previous Broadway Roses. ... What distinguishes LuPone's accomplishment is the fiery fusion of music and drama that she pulls off with seemingly spontaneous expressiveness. Speech slides into song as naturally as water returns to air, and the ensuing rainbow of vocal color is like the proof of some rarely observed scientific law.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Patti LuPone is a star reborn. Her potrayal of the legendarily pushy Momma Rose in Gypsy, which opened Thursday in an extraordinary Broadway revival, is a stellar achievement in a career of achievements on stage and TV, in movies and concert halls. ...She unleashes "Rose's Turn," the take-no-prisoners finale, with a fury that leaves her shaking. If there were a Tony Award for Most Menacing Diva, LuPone would get it. As it is, she'll probably have to settle for Best Actress in a Musical.

Newsday has compiled a list of the actresses who has played Mama Rose on stage and screen:
Ethel Merman, Broadway: (1959) Brassy belter was the first and, many still say, best Mama Rose.
Rosalind Russell, Film: (1962) Russell took a hit from critics upset that Merman hadn't been allowed to re-create the role.
Angela Lansbury, Broadway: (1974) One of two Roses to win a Tony. (Lansbury is pictured at this week's opening night of "Gypsy."
Tyne Daly, Broadway: (1989) The other Tony winner.
Bette Midler, TV: (1993) Campy, but well-received "Gypsy" packed in all the Jerome Robbins choreography.
Bernadette Peters, Broadway: (2003) Kewpie-doll actress was the most controversial "Rose," in the only Broadway "Gypsy" not directed by Arthur Laurents.

Related post: Meeting Angela Lansbury...