Everything comes up roses in ‘Gypsy’

  • Dale Burrows<br>For the Enterprise
  • Monday, March 3, 2008 11:32am

Browbeating mom grows daughter up to be bad-girl stripper.

You could say “Gypsy” amounts to child abuse or the war of the Roses, the Roses being Mama Rose and daughter, Gypsy Rose Lee. God knows, the two fight to the finish.

But you could also say some savvy Savoyards are here hoisting child abuse up to the American Dream and asking a question.

The question is: what price, success?

The book by Arthur Laurents derives from Gypsy Rose Lee’s autobiography, a best seller and only one in a string of other major accomplishments. Lee also made it as a Ziegfeld Girl and mystery writer, starred in 12 films and had her own TV show. That this product of a tormented childhood got to the top is undeniable.

But the music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim are Broadway all the way. They raise you up, they bring you down, they take you down a garden path where, like one of the songs says, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”

So the Hollywood take or dysfunction rules? Which way do the Savoyards jump?

Laura Abel as Mama Rose certainly and accurately makes the case for herself as mother “… with a dream too big for any sign, too bright for any lights …” and who only wants the best for her two daughters. Of course, her constant hammering and yammering drive one out and the other to striptease.

And Larkyn Pope as young Louise is a poster child for battered child syndrome, emotionally.

Yet, Cayman llika as Louise comes into her own and on her own, puts out an adult daughter who is pretty well-adjusted to her mother and is successful in a big way but keeping her clothes on in a business where women take theirs off.

Admittedly, there is more going on than the mother-daughter battle of the behemoths. There is the mama drama between Mama Rose and booking agent, Herbie, who moons over her and runs himself ragged following her orders.

There is also five-year-old Britt Flatmo in a pink dress and Orphan Annie wig as Baby June singing “May We Entertain You,” Shirley Temple style. And Patches and Chewy Poppy, as Mama Rose’s two, possibly Chihuahuas, Chowsie I and Chowsie ll (“Chowsie” being short for Chow Mein).

And there is also the marvelous music and lyrics that get the feel of vaudeville when it was dying and much of America didn’t know where it was going and didn’t have much to sing about but still did.

On the other hand, be advised. Something’s got to be done about the set changes. The time taken to make them sometimes slows the show’s rhythm to a standstill. How many times we sat twiddling our thumbs in the dark, I cannot say.

However, overall, it still comes through. Janet Pope’s directing asks and lets you answer: America, dream or nightmare? What price, success?

Buy your ticket and take your pick.

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