| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 03:32 am EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | Todays's Random Question: Gypsy - PatrickHSF 01:46 am EST 11/22/14 |
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| First, it had a very good run for the time period. Not as long as the biggest hits, but very good. Second, as Sondheim has said, the biggest hits are almost always shows that tell the audience something it wants to hear, and Gypsy tells the audience something it doesn't want to hear. A show can be sort of sad or dark in some way and yet tell the audience something it wants to hear. Fiddler is a good example. The ending is sad, but it's also affirmative. It tells us that the family will endure. Gypsy, according to Sondheim (and I think he's right), tells us that eventually we must become responsible for our parents. We become the parent, and the parent becomes our child. No one wants to hear this. Third, it was very strongly associated with Merman, and there may have been fear that it wouldn't run without her. She agreed to tour in it, and she didn't like touring, had never really done it. (A tour of Red, Hot and Blue never got past its first stop, Chicago, and I think that was the only time she even agreed to tour one of her Broadway shows.) But if they wanted her to tour, they would have to close the show because there was only so long she was going to do it. It was an exhausting role, and she didn't really like super-long runs. She was miserable during her third year in Annie Get Your Gun. In fact, Gypsy shut down for five weeks during the summer of 1960, probably because Merman really needed a vacation. I think that a book on Ann Sothern says that Sothern (who later played it in stock) was approached to take over the role when Merman was ready to go on tour, but it didn't happen. Business had probably run down enough that bringing in a replacement would have been risky. My impression, which may not be correct, is that if Merman had been willing to play out the run on Broadway until it was no longer consistently making its weekly nut and then tour, it could have run at least a few more months. But better to get out while it was still doing pretty well. It was far more cost-effective to send it on the road with the Broadway sets and costumes and as much of the cast as wanted to go. As for the Tonys, which were far less important then than now, if it had opened in time to be eligible for the 1959 Tonys, it would have easily been won best musical, probably would have won best actress (though Verdon might have given Merman a run for her money), and had a very good shot at winning in both featured or supporting categories, musical director and costumes. (There were no awards for best book or score in either season. And at the time there was only one director award covering both plays and musicals, and Robbins would not have won in 1959.) It also would easily have won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best musical. But by the time of the Tonys, it was almost a year old. Some have said that Merman's performance had deteriorated and that's why she lost to Martin. Others have disputed that her performance had deteriorated, and have suggested that Martin won because she was playing a much more sympathetic role and was better liked personally. And, again, it's not a show that tells people want they want to hear, and that affected it at the Tonys. Both Fiorello! and The Sound of Music do tell people things they want to hear. So The Sound of Music got the votes of those who liked the sentimental crowdpleaser, while Fiorello! got the votes of those who were impressed by its seriousness. Gypsy was not widely viewed as a serious work of art at the time. There were some who saw it that way, but most saw it as a good musical comedy, even if a bit more serious than most and perhaps even a bit disturbing. But, still, a musical comedy. FWIW, in the 1960 voting for the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best musical, Fiorello! got 10 votes, Gypsy and Bye Bye Birdie each got three, The Sound of Music got two, and Greenwillow got one. | |
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| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | LegitOnce 08:47 am EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) - AlanScott 03:32 am EST 11/22/14 |
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| Yet another unpleasant truth stated in Gypsy is that however horrible your parents were, they were primarily responsible for making you into whatever you are today. Without Rose, and, more to the point, without Rose's obnoxious drive, there would never have been such a person as Gypsy Rose Lee. A lesser (or, depending on how you look at it a more human) woman than Rose would have thrown in the towel after June quit the act, married Herbie, and then they would have done something about Louie's lack of education. She might have gone into some form of show business, or she might have gone to college and then married someone pleasant and respectable-- we don't know, but the point is that if Rose had not been Rose, Louise would never have started stripping. An older actor friend said that he happened to score a single ticket for Gypsy in the first week or two of its first run, before the OCR and before the plot was common knowledge. He said that when June left and Rose was confronted with "what happens now," he was absolutely certain her next line would be "all right, Herbie, I'll marry you." When Rose turned to Louise and said "I'm going to make you a star," he told me, the whole audience gasped, and there were even some cries of "No!" People didn't go to commercial theater in those days to be shocked, and they damn well didn't expect good old reliable Ethel Merman to turn into a monster before their eyes. Gypsy | |
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| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | Delvino 08:38 am EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) - AlanScott 03:32 am EST 11/22/14 |
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| Agree strongly. And one of the things the show tells audiences transcends even parent-child dynamics: that perhaps regret is an inevitable part of life. That regret, when it overwhelms you, can an enormous, defining emotion. One of the reasons "Rose's Turn" is so terrifying. It says: you can get to age 50+ and ask "Why did I do it?" Perhaps audiences would rather have that asked in the middle of act two, as in MAME, when she sings "If He Walked Into My Life (would I make the same mistakes)," and then has it all resolved as the protagonist becomes a wonderful inspiring grandmother. Rose? She looks back at that spotlight on stage, and there's no grandchild to warm her heart. It's empty. She's not in it. (Even if Merman didn't play it the way it has evolved, per Laurents, there was never an easy feel-good fix, not after Rose attempts to exorcise her demons in front of us.) When I see "Gypsy" in middle age, I realize how regret-saturated the story really is. It breaks our hearts. | |
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| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | Shutterbug 07:37 am EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) - AlanScott 03:32 am EST 11/22/14 |
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| Alan, Thanks for this thoughtful post. I agree. I would, however, expand on Sondheim 's explanation of GYPSY'S message. Even more disturbing than the message that our parents become our children, is the idea that for those who may be parents (and thus identifying with Rose - as opposed to Louise) is the idea that we will become the children. No one wants to hear that either. Rose's Turn, in particular, gives us the clearest and most frightening glimpse inside of Rose's mind. While we thrill to the powerful performance of a fantastic leading lady (Merman, LuPone, Peters, Daly), the song's subtext sends a different kind of chill down the spine. SB | |
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| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 04:08 pm EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) - Shutterbug 07:37 am EST 11/22/14 |
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| Yes, it's not a happy show for parents either. No one really wants to be reminded of any of these things. A very good point. | |
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| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | garyd 07:35 pm EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) - AlanScott 04:08 pm EST 11/22/14 |
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| I guess I disagree to some degree. It is a work that is about choices and the consequence of choices. We took all three of our kids and, if provided the opportunity, will take all three grandkids. We took them to just about everything and, if they had questions, we just answered them. "Gypsy" is literate and entertaining and, historically, attracts significant theatre talent. It affords an exquisite opportunity to expose audiences of all ages to the musical theatre genre. (Of course, I saw the original, as I did with all of my first theatre experiences, with my grandmother who literally said "don't tell mama, just say we saw "Sound of Music". :)) | |
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| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 07:38 pm EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) - garyd 07:35 pm EST 11/22/14 |
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| I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. If I had kids, I'd take them to see Gypsy, unless they had an aversion to the theatre, in which case I'd put them up for adoption. | |
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| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | garyd 08:40 pm EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) - AlanScott 07:38 pm EST 11/22/14 |
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| :) I remember taking our youngest with us to see "The Crying Game". He was 11 or 12. At the end, we sat and watched the credits and he said: "so, we are sitting here in the dark so that no one notices that you brought your impressionable young teen to see this?" Such a smart ass. Of course he saw "A Chorus Line " at 8. At 34 he emailed: "Okay, going to see "Company". Since I have been listening to it since I was born, I suppose it's about time I see the damn thing.".. Subsequent email: "Well shit. You DO NOT get to say I told you so". | |
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| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | Delvino 08:35 pm EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) - AlanScott 07:38 pm EST 11/22/14 |
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| I think kids identify with June and Louise, easily. Older ones, with Gypsy. It's a show about detaching, finding an identity. That's why the second act is so brilliant, of course; it takes us deep into the mother-daughter dynamic, raising the stakes once Gypsy is created and Rose's role wanes. It's that arc -- very real and universal, despite the show biz milieu -- that shakes people. Every child has to separate from a parent(s), every parent has to let go. It's scary real. | |
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| re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) | |
| Posted by: | Greg_M 12:31 pm EST 11/23/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Todays's Random Question: Gypsy (long answer) - Delvino 08:35 pm EST 11/22/14 |
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| I first saw "Gypsy" when I was 8 and thought Rose was a monster - If I were one of her kids I would have run away. . . far, far away | |
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