a necessary vacuum
by Douglas Messerli
Jule Styne (music), Arthur Laurents
(book), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) Gypsy
/ New York, St. James Theatre / the performance I saw was on the evening of May
10, 2008
Most of the women who have played this role—Ethel Merman, Rosalind
Russell, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bette Midler, and, in the recent
production I attended, Patti LuPone—had long played powerful women before they
attempted the role (Bernadette Peters is perhaps the exception). For Mama Rose
is the kind of dominating woman who, before the operetta is over (and I think
of this American musical as having more links to opera than many other musical
works), must devour nearly all the other characters on stage, even the audience
itself, to get the attention she craves. Ultimately, these performers, like
full force hurricanes, leave little in their paths except the shy, naked girl
who has no choice but to retreat into the mind she has never been permitted to
develop.
The audience can do little but sit in stony silence or madly applaud! As
if witnessing the death dance of the mad Medea or the passionate self-willed
rape of Salome, one recognizes Rose’s last long screed (“Rose’s
Turn”)—performed supposedly in an empty theater where we sit as voyeurs—as
something nearly unbearable to watch. Her daughter’s lame response, “You could
have been great, mama,” is a death knell to this woman born too early and come
to performance too late. “Could have, would have,” Rose bites back, knowing
that despite all the living she has done vicariously through her daughters, she
stands alone on the stage, bowing to an imaginary audience. The fact that we
sit there, madly applauding her desperate lament, only reiterates the fact
that, within the drama itself, she faces the silence of death.
Yet, as I title the next essay, “What a way to go!” Despite her utter
selfishness, Rose has also been utterly, unintentionally selfless, destroying
her children and lover at the very moment of building their characters into the
kind of strong-willed pioneer woman that she herself is. Gypsy Rose Lee may
seek all of her life for the love her mother was unable to provide, but, as she
herself admits, she will now live her life by herself in her own manner. Her
new identity has transformed the poor little untalented girl that once stood
behind it.
What is remarkable about Patti LuPone’s substantial performance,
particularly when she opens her mouth in song, is that in her characterization
of Rose we understand, perhaps for
I never saw the Ethel Merman production, but after seeing this version
of the musical play, it now seems hard to imagine such a rock of flesh as
having been able to entice anyone to do anything, let alone perform loony
amateur skits, as Baby June and Louise did, year after year. One understands in
LuPone’s performance why Herbie can “never get away” from her, staying on until
the last shred of human decency is dropped, like Gypsy’s long white gloves.
New
York, May 11, 2008
Reprinted from Green Integer Blog (June 2008).
