Reviews 2005
Reviews 2005
✭✭✭✭✩
music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Arthur Laurents, directed by Jackie Maxwell
Shaw Festival, Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake
May 7-October 30, 2005
"Let Her Entertain You"
“Gypsy” is a star vehicle and there is no point in staging it, as Stratford did in 1993, without one. The Shaw Festival does have a star and it’s Nora McLellan in a role she was born to play. Not only is McLellan superb but so is the entire supporting cast making this the one musical to see in Ontario this summer.
Besides a vibrant score by Jule Styne and razor-sharp lyrics from Stephen Sondheim, one of the greatest strengths of this 1959 musical is the strong book by Arthur Laurents. In adapting the memoirs of famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee (1911-1970) for the stage, he realized that the most interesting character was not Gypsy but her mother Rose. In focussing on Rose as the archetypal stage mother, Laurents created one of the most complex female characters in the American musical. As she tries to make her favourite daughter Baby June a star, she faces set-back after set-back with a combination of scheming and boundless optimism. When June runs off to be married with the dancer Tulsa, Mama Rose sets her sights on Louise, the daughter she had always thought untalented.
Nora McLellan has the full measure of this role, both as an actor and as a singer. She shows from the very first that Mama Rose is seeking stardom by proxy. After June has run off, McLellan’s Rose turns with a chilling, vampire-like glint toward Louise as another source for her sustenance. McLellan does not try to gloss over Rose’s favoritism and manipulation of her daughters to make them seem admirable. When Rose accedes to Louise’s desire to become a stripper, we feel Rose has hit a new low. Rose’s optimism is also a form of self-deception and pushes away people who love her like June and the manager Herbie. Yet, her self-deception and ignorance of her own motives are the flaws that make her sympathetic. McLellan plays the role with the kind of detail one seldom sees in musicals nowadays. She mines the character deeply and reveals all the contradictions that make Rose who she is. On the acting level alone, it is a powerful performance.
But McLellan can also sing and Rose has some of the most famous showtunes in Broadway history: “Some People”, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”, “Small World”. McLellan masterfully handles the finale “Rose’s Turn” beginning in a rage of anger against Louise but subtly shifting it toward herself as she finally comes to realize her delusion in thinking that promoting her daughters’ fame was a selfless action. Though they were written for famous “belter” Ethel Merman, McLellen does not belt out the songs but sings them. In this way she combines even in song the hard edge and the vulnerability that make Rose a fascinating figure.
McLellan is surrounded by a very strong cast. Trish Lindstrom is the spoiled, petulant June and Julie Martell the neglected Louise. Martell makes Louise’s pain and subjection so real, it’s hard to forget them as we’re asked to when she rises to fame as Gypsy Rose Lee. Martell never fully dominates the stage as Gypsy by the end of her transformation during scene 4 of Act 2. Her portrait of the pampered, French-speaking star is unconvincing but then this is also the weakest part of the book.
Ric Reid puts in a fine performance as an ordinary guy sucked into Rose’s showbiz whirl against his will and frustrated by her pursuit of a pointless dream. Triple-threat Jeff Lillico is excellent as the dancer Tulsa who wins June’s heart. He delivers “All I Need Is the Girl” with panache but choreographer Valerie Moore should have supplied him with a showier routine. Among the performers Louise meets at the burlesque house in Wichita, Lisa Horner as Tessie Tura looks delightfully decrepit in her skimpy sequined outfit and makes the clichéd tart with a heart seem fresh. Gabrielle Jones is a brash, big-boned, big-voiced Mazeppa, who steals the number “You Gotta Get A Gimmick” making Patricia Vanstone’s lightbulb-studded Electra look timorous by comparison.
In smaller roles, William Vickers is suitably repulsive as kiddie-show host Uncle Jocko and imperious as the theatre owner Mr. Goldstone. Bernard Behrens has a memorable cameo has Rose’s crotchety Pop. And Kate Hennig is Mr. Goldstone’s harpy-like secretary Mrs. Cratchitt. Hennig also plays Rose for certain designated performances of “Gypsy”. Having seen her outstanding performance in “The Danish Play” in Toronto in 2002, I have no doubt her interpretation of Rose will be fascinating.
Director Jackie Maxwell and set designer Peter Hartwell have decided that since so much of the musical takes place in theaters--on stage, backstage, in dressing rooms, managers’ offices, in nearby alleys--that the metaphor of theatre should extend to the whole work. Thus the stage is bare to the back wall except for what look like unused flats piled against it stage left and right. Sets on wheels for some scenes with their own painted backdrops are pushed in from the wings with the void of the bare stage around them. Doors are set in doorframes without walls. The production emphasizes both the idea of theatre as making something out of nothing and Rose’s personal view of the world as nothing but theatre. Judith Bowden’s costumes for Baby Rose’s children’s numbers and for the burlesque queens look authentically and amusingly home-made. Kevin Lamotte’s lighting recreates the lighting, from haphazard to sophisticated, that one would see in the wide range of theatres Rose and her daughters visit.
“Gypsy” marks the first time the Shaw Festival has ever staged a musical in its Festival Theatre. Unfortunately, unlike the musicals at the Royal George, “Gypsy” is miked but at least the volume is not set to the unnaturally high level one encounters on Broadway. The Shaw’s usual chamber-sized band has been augmented to thirteen. Even so it doesn’t really have the necessary heft, especially in the strings, that the show needs. That lack, however, is more than made up for by the magnificent Nora McLellan. It’s hard to imagine anyone surpassing her performance.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Michaela Bekenn, Ric Reid and Nora McLellan. ©2005 Shin Sugino.
2005-08-30
Gypsy