Gypsy

When the curtain came down on Act 1 of Gypsy, my friend Susan said, "She's so wrong and she's so good." Excellent summation!

I was one of those who greeted Audra's casting with, she's miscast, her voice is miscast. And I was also one of those who said, it's Audra, we gotta go. Having seen the show, I still think she is miscast, and her voice is definitely wrong for the show. But she was amazing. Mesmerizing. Honest, real, raw. In my pantheon of Roses I've seen in person (Angela, Tyne, Sally Mayes, Bernadette, Patti, and now Audra), I'd put her second only to Tyne. Her "Rose's Turn" was scalding, even ugly, and thrilling. 

Photo: Julieta Cervantes

Unfortunately, the rest of the production is mediocre. I don't expect a cast on Audra's level, but better singing and acting would be welcome. The performers are not helped by George C. Wolfe's anti-subtle direction. He has Rose's troupe perform so atrociously that no one would have booked them ever. Nor would T.T. Grantziger see promise in June, as both Junes screeched their way through the show. (After seeing this and Show/Boat: A River close together, I'm beginning to wonder if acting badly well is a lost art.)

In addition to his direction of the acting, I think Wolfe got a lot of the show wrong in tone and timing. And little-but-important moments are missed. For example, having Gypsy face the audience rather than a mirror when she says, "I'm a pretty girl, Mama" dissipates the impact. 

And why would anyone replace Jerome Robbins' choreography in this show (and in West Side Story)? Isn't that just saying that you want choreography that isn't as good, theatrical, or organic? Two of the best choreographed numbers in the history of musical theatre are from Gypsy. When the chorus of dancers grow from kids to young adults while dancing, using a strobe, it's theatricality at its best. Similarly, Robbins' choreography for Gypsy going from shy neophyte to star is smooth and evocative and impressive and meaningful. In this Gypsy, both numbers are, well, okay. (No insult to this choreographer, btw. Trying to replace something perfect is a thankless assignment.)

Interestingly, the mediocrity of this production allows Gypsy's few imperfections to come to the fore. The most important one is, I think, that there is too little opportunity to see Rose's charm in the first act. If there were an earlier song like "Together," it would be easier to see Rose as a person rather than a monster. (Though I must note that a huge chunk of the audience gasped a couple of times at Rose's behavior. I've never seen the show with so many first-timers. It was fun.)

But this production is about Audra! And she's amazing!

Wendy Caster

On the Town

As Carol Oja points out in her new, excellent book Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War, the 1944 musical On the Town is not nearly as well-known or celebrated as Jerome Robbin's and Leonard Bernstein's 1957 collaboration, West Side Story. It's also not as cohesive or as deep, which is not to imply, at all, that it's bad. It isn't--especially in joyful revival at the historically cursed Ford/Hilton/Foxwood/Lyric Theater. 

A landmark work that is perhaps celebrated less for its aesthetic achievements than for its introduction to Broadway of a young, superlatively talented, and enormously influential creative team (Bernstein! Robbins! Betty Comden! Adolph Green!), On the Town was the result of disparate elements that were blended together in a hurry. Based in part on the short ballet Fancy Free, which premiered to enormous acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House in April 1944 (and which you can see in its entirety here), On the Town was expanded into a full-length musical that opened on Broadway in December of the same year. Still deeply rooted in dance and, like Fancy Free, primarily about three sailors on shore leave, On the Town's book and lyrics were added by Comden and Green, who drew largely from material they'd been using in their nightclub comedy troupe, the Revuers (which also featured Judy Holliday, and for which Bernstein sometimes served as pianist).

The resultant musical is as dense a mix of highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow elements as the disparate influences imply: moody classical dance sequences are accompanied by Bernstein's symphonic scoring, while hips grind suggestively to his jazzier, bluesier numbers. Other numbers are all about wide-open, smiling faces and optimistic Broadway brass. Through the show, erudite, elitist characters mix easily with crasser, coarser ones. There are ridiculous plot-lines and moving ones (sometimes, these are one and the same). There are subtle jokes, corny jokes, recurring jokes, cheap jokes, dirty jokes.