'Gypsy'
Grab onto this musical masterpiece with all your might.
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Event Profile
The
Skinny
There may be strippers, adorable kiddies and dancing cows in this show, but its
story belongs to a gutsy Seattle mama loaded with dreams.
What
You Get
Musicals don't get much better than Gypsy, and with her powerful and beautiful
voice, Broadway's Judy Kaye was born to play Mama Rose. Kaye is absolutely sensational
as the overbearing stage mother who relentlessly pushes her daughters, Baby June
and Baby Louise (future stripper Gypsy Rose Lee), into show biz. If Mama doesn't
have an angle, she invents one, which attracts gentlemen like Herbie, tenderly
portrayed by Stephen Godwin.
Finely directed by Mark Waldrop, Gypsy casts a loving--and often humorous--glance at Vaudville's heyday, eventually toppled by burlesque houses full of titty-tough strippers bumping and grinding for bucks. Anne Allgood (Mazeppa), Carolyn Magoon (Tessie Tura) and Angie Rolfs (Electra) almost steal the show with "You Gotta Have a Gimmick," a singing guide to tossing your duds. In a twist of fate, Sloan Just, as Gypsy Rose Lee, leaps from pupil to headliner by baring her elegant new tricks in the legendary "Let Me Entertain You." But this musical's tour de force will forever be "Rose's Turn," when Mama Rose struts her stuff for the world to see. Judy Kaye belts this number home--as well as the show--with an unforgettable wallop.
Audience
Etiquette
On opening night, Tigger, in the doggie role of "Chowski," behaved better
than ten tacky wannabes who tromped out of the front rows during "Rose's
Turn." Such ill-mannered Huns should sit in the back or stay home in their
trailers and watch wrestling. They owe Kaye and the rest of the audience an apology.
Starla Smith.