Topic UCF and GYPSY.... again... take two. from the General Chit-Chat forum.
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| Author | Topic: UCF and GYPSY.... again... take two. |
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 UCFGuardgirl
Registered User
Registered:
6/15/2003
From:
New York City | posted: 10/22/2003 at 2:14:35 PM ET
Well, when a friend of yours comes to town and innocently asks, "what should I see? I haven't been to NY in quite some time and I want to see a show..." what can you say in response, without lying, and without revealing your true nature as a diehard theatre geek?
So I recommended GYPSY to my friend Deb, a fellow Broadway afficionado who knew of Bernadette Peters but had never seen her live, and she invited me to tag along for the ride.
5 days after having already seen it once.
But no matter.
This time, my seat was in the mezannine -- originally 6th row, moved down to 3rd row, because half of the mezzanine was empty. Why? I'm assuming the Yankees World Series game, and the fact that it was tuesday in mid-October, which probably didn't help.
At any rate.
The house lights went down and the overture was just as glorious as ever. What's funny is the difference in sound from first row orchestra to the higher seats. The microphone echo is a bit more pronounced -- not that the sound is bad, but it takes longer to get to our ears, physically, and there is a definite "removed" quality; it's hard to explain.
Anyway, the sound was still very good, and the orchestra is, as always, thrilling. There's something about the overture for Gypsy that makes you giddy, no matter how many times you've heard it. Something that makes you feel as if you're inside the show, right away. It gives you chills and goosebumps, like something important is about to happen.
Let me preface this review by saying it's very strange seeing a show like this for the second time. Theatre is a funny creature that way. You know what's going to happen and yet... you don't. When the actors do something new, or sing a chord a certain way, or gesture differently, you feel almost like you're seeing the show for the first time.
As you can imagine, when I walked out of the theatre yesterday, I was once again wowed. But this time, not only because I was on a first-time excitement high, or because I am a Bernadette Peters fan, or a fan of this musical in general. There was just something in the air last night. There was an energy hovering over the stage; all the actors and the musicians were in on it. Everything that had been good last week was just... MORE. Louder. Better. Maybe it was beginning of the week excitement. Maybe it was world series fever. Maybe everyone was just in a tremendously good mood.
Whatever it was, Bernadette's voice was clearer (I don't know if her voice gets slightly raspy at the end of the week -- because it was very smoky when I saw her last thursday -- but she was clear and perfect last night, and she was boundless. She sounded as if she'd just gotten 15 hours of sleep.) John Dossett was MORE. Tammy Blanchard was MORE. Everyone and everything was more. I can't even describe it properly, except to say I wish you guys had been there to fully understand what I mean. The feeling coming off the stage was palpable, almost physical.
The 411 on Bernadette's performance last night:
Bernadette is usually fantastic. Obviously. Anyone who comes to this site or has seen the show knows this. Bernadette Peters is... well, Bernadette Peters. The First Lady of Broadway. The Queen of the Marquee.
But last night was somehow different. Last night she brimmed with some sort of mystical, mysterious, voluminous amount of energy. She overflowed with it and the energy sort of ricocheted off the walls and boomeranged into the audience. Her gestures were more pronounced, her body language emphasized, exaggerated; there were times, especially towards the end,with Herbie walking out, when she shook the rafters with her rage, and had to brace herself; all action seemed to stop. Nobody in the audience dared breathe.
When she cried, her hands shook, and then her arms shook, and then her whole body shook, and when she exploded out of the tears into Rose's hard, bold rages, it was nothing less than an inferno.
When she spun Tammy into John during "Everything's Coming Up Roses," she nearly knocked them both over backwards.
"Together" was funny and animated, and more drawn out in certain sections, especially when she sang her "pretty" note at the end, that Tammy and John both mimmick. The note went on for about 6 seconds, and it hit 4 different octaves.
"You'll never Get Away From Me" was sensual, with Rose and Herbie smiling, on the verge of laughter, and his hands on her rear and her hands on his, and they nearly toppled when they danced a bit too close and spun, and came close to tripping over one another's shoes. It didn't distract, but was rather endearing, and seemed to spurn Bernadette on.
In "Rose's Turn," the impression she gave was almost primal. Her voice could have blown the roof off the theatre down the street.
A few bits of things that stand out in my mind:
The reprise of "Small World," and the scene that preceedes it, when Rose orders Louise to fix her face and hair for her first strip, is such an intensely powerful scene. I don't think I realized how powerful until I saw it again, last night.
Rose loves Herbie, but something in her withers when she agrees to marry him, and to give up show business.
Rose is obsessed, and in this scene, we see exactly HOW obsessed. Rose loves Herbie, but she can't settle down; she won't. Men are unreliable, men love but they leave -- people, in general, leave her, just like her mother left her. Show business is the cushion, it's always there for her, it's the light at the end of the tunnel. Show business is big enough to make Rose someone else. Rose desperately wants to be someone else.
So Bernadette dances about the room, marking ideas off her invisible list, snatching accesories for Louise off the shelves, and executing this flawless, insane monologue that is part whimsical, part deranged determination. Bernadette is perfect here: childlike, practically waltzing with fame itself. She's hungry in a deceptively lady-like way, giggling and clapping her hands together, and we see this strange dichotomy the second Herbie says he is leaving her. She changes, she becomes feral. First they argue, and Bernadette is deeply, quietly, ferocious. Her chest pumps with breath; her fists are clenched.
When John Dossett gets in her way, Bernadette shoves him full force, shoves him so hard he loses his footing and catches himself on the shelf. She tries to write and her hands tremble, and her eyes dart, welled up with tears she tries to suck down. Rose has a breakdown and Bernadette so absolutely IS this person in this moment that you think she is going to collapse one minute, and then shoot someone the next.
Then, Herbie leaves.
It is here that Bernadette screams, from the bottom of her diaphram, in a voice much lower and louder and more ferocious than I saw her last time: "YOU.... GO... TO... HELL!" She draws out that last word and braces herself on the shelf. Her hand goes over her mouth. She doesn't speak for about 5 seconds, and suddenly, you hear this gut-wrenching, horrible sob. Loud, and painful. And then another sob. Then she finds her way to the desk like a blind woman, her arms feeling for the chair.
"Small World" is sung through sobs (as it always is) but last night she paused... almost on every individual word, as if contemplating their meanings for the first time. When she got to, "funny, I'm a woman with children..." she stopped singing entirely and broke down in a bizarre, childlike-sort of laughter, and banged her fist on the desk as if the whole relationship had been one pathetic inside joke. The tears kept on streaming, and the track marks on her cheeks were visible and glistening from the mezannine.
Play by Play of Rose's Turn:
Something magical happened last night when Bernadette stepped onto the stage for this song. Let me preface this by saying that Tammy Blanchard walked back onstage in tears. She was wiping them away for the first 15 seconds she was onstage. People in the house, after Bernadette's performance, were chanting her name, screaming it out. The performance was simply a force of nature like nothing else I've ever seen. Last time I saw her, she was fantastic. This time, she reached a realm beyond fantastic into something that has yet to be named.
Bernadette not only had full command of us from the beginning, she drew us completely into Rose in a way that was slow and deliberate.
She says, "I was born too soon," and pauses, and catches her breath from sobbing, and then says, "and I started too late, that's why." Then she manages, "What I got in ME," feral, from her gut, looks around at all of us, waving her hand at us, as if to say, this is YOUR fault. All of this. It is everyone's fault but my own.
When she pulls the neckline of her dress for "how you like them eggrolls Mr. Goldstone?" she pulls it so hard her knuckles whiten and I'm positive she's going to rip the dress.
"Hello everybody," is one long, long, word, and her head goes back, like she's not with us anymore -- she's somewhere else -- and her hand goes down the front of her body, as if doing an obscene, clothed strip, and then she circles her hips (which I'd seen her do last time) and continues, "my name's Rose." Then her voice changes, and she pantomimes baby June with a wide arm circle, and says, in tiny, high voice, "what's YOOOUUUUUURRRRRRRSSSSSS?"
When she saunters backstage, the dress goes up so high it's nearly mid-thigh, and she keeps it there for a long, long time. Then she shimmies and flails her arms and takes her time, and humms, all the while turning back to the audience, at least 4 or 5 times, winking; it was all an inside joke, you see, and we've never been let in on it.
On "Momma's talking loud, Momma's doing fine," her arms stretch out at odd angles, nearly pinwheeling off her body. She walks sort like a drunk, like a blissfully insane person who revels in her insanity.
And then... Bernadette as Rose has the breakdown. She pauses at, "Maaaa..." and it's drawn out. She pauses. And pauses. And says it again: "Maaa..." and pauses. Her face is soaked with tears. She grabs her stomach as if in physical pain, and drops to her knees. She certainly didn't do that the last time I saw her. Then she takes a deep breath that is almost a wheeze, and manages, "Momma's.... gotta... let go" in the loudest, most feral whisper I've ever heard, and is broken up by gut wrenching sobs. She's still on her knees. Her hands clench into fists, and they catch at her throat.
Bernadette finally gets to her feet (you can see Marvin watching her for when to start the next bar) and she begins, "Why did I do it? What did it get me?" This time, she bends over, one hand on her stomach, the other over her mouth. She's almost in pain. She looks like she's going to collapse from the weight of her failure. As she uprights, she says, "Scrapbooks full of me in the background."
When she launches into, "It wasn't for me Herbie," she pauses to laugh -- pauses the whole song -- and she laughs and cries at the same time, which is wrenching, and Marvin is holding the note, waiting, when suddenly she stomps her foot so hard the microphone picks it up, and she waves an arm, as if waving Herbie off.
Then she picks up the next phrase: "and if it wasn't for me," and ends with, "then where would you be, miss Gypsy... Rose... Leeeeeeee?"
And I swear to God, each word literally gets its own sentence. Not only that, but she mimicks the tone she'd used before in the beginning monologue, when she snipped to her daughter, "Miss Gypsy Rose LEE.")
That last note is cried from the pit of her diaphragm, so loud the walls nearly shake, and the woman next to me jumps. And Bernadette, onstage, is stretching an arm, clenching and unclenching her fists, and stomping her foot, and then reaching out to the audience as if reaching out to Louise.
Everything from "Weeeeeell," to the last part of the song, when all the signs behind her light up, is sung like an accusation. It's half-sung, half shouted in a passionate entreaty. Her eyes dart across the audience, wild, spilling over with tears, her head whips, and her arms shake with the force of her clenched fists. Her chest heaves. The look in her eyes makes you want to shrink in your seat. I, as an audience member, FELT it WAS my fault, somehow. It was my fault and Louise's fault and June's fault and Herbie's fault; how dare we leave her and betray her? How dare we not realize who and what she is? Just... How. Dare. We?
Spectacular. I've never felt so involved in a performance, ever.
Each "for mmeeee" was long, drawn out, sung clearly (with not a bit of smokiness) with arms flailing, then fists clenched. At this point, Rose is desperate and lost and insane, and throwing a childlike temper tantrum of mourning.
She ends on, "for....meeeeee..." and let me tell you, she held that note OUT. She held it out for a good, slow 15 seconds. She held it out so long it nearly rivavled "Anything you can do" from AGYG. Long enough to run her hand slowly down the center of her body, down to her torso, then back up, up over her shoulder, the side of her face, through her hair, straight up in the air, then down again, where both hands cupped her face, went down her neck, and then back up, then down to her chest, where they crossed over, and her head went back for the end of the song.
The response to this was immediate and wild. Like I said, Tammy came out wiping tears from her eyes. I don't think I breathed the entire performance. Bernadette's face was red, her eyes puffy; she was still shaking. It was incredible.
And I've written another novel. I just can't say enough good things about this performance. I will be broke by the end of the year, I can guarantee you that.
***************
Rose: Mr. Weber, you left me right in the middle of a sentence.
Weber: Madam Rose, you're always in the middle of a sentence.
---- GYPSY
|  Fan55
Registered User
Registered:
3/1/2003 | posted: 10/22/2003 at 2:53:30 PM ET
I've seen the show twice, as well. Both times, the performance by everyone on a whole, and Bernadette, were wonderful. I think having watched BP's performnce at the Tony's gave away that first time reaction for me...but still wonderful live, you know? Anyway, I wish I was there when you were, the second time, your post is wonderful...you explained every detail, I felt liek I was there that night. The way you described it and the way I pictured it as reading, almost made me cry, infact, I feel like crying right now....very powerful...thank you....alot!
Fan55
ps-GO BERNADETTE!!!
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 10/22/2003 at 3:42:32 PM ET
You explain so well why nothing is more exciting than live theatre. Others have said it before, but I'll say it again: you really should try writing professionally. I've gotten so much more from your reports on Gypsy than I have from even the better theatre critics. The description of physical details, the analysis, all of it, is so top-notch. You joke around that you're "writing a book", but hey, if you ever did, I'd be the first to buy it. Love your stuff. Thanks!
|  Broadwaybaby17
Registered User
Registered:
3/18/2003
From:
Alabama | posted: 10/22/2003 at 4:03:15 PM ET
Ok I am crying right now! I cannot wait to see the show! Just three more months!
Bump it with a trumpet!
| UCFGuardgirl
Registered User
Registered:
6/15/2003
From:
New York City | posted: 10/22/2003 at 4:14:41 PM ET
LOL - thanks. I'd need an editor with all those typos, though. *sigh* Sorry about those.
I actually have been published in literary journals, but writing a novel? I don't know that I'd have the patience. My problem is that I want to get to the end too fast. And then when it's over, I think... well, that was fast. lol.
Oh, and BTW: does anyone else just get the biggest kick out of Bernadette and her black South Park winter hat? She looks so professional... right up until Cartman. Hysterical. I love it.
***************
Rose: Mr. Weber, you left me right in the middle of a sentence.
Weber: Madam Rose, you're always in the middle of a sentence.
---- GYPSY
| lyric
Registered User
Registered:
8/27/2003 | posted: 10/22/2003 at 4:15:33 PM ET
Great review, UCF - both critiques you've written have made me want to see it again !! And this time sitting in the orchestra.
:|: Amanda :|:
|  MsPetersFan1
Registered User
Registered:
6/25/2002
From:
Long Island, New York & Boston, | posted: 10/22/2003 at 4:43:11 PM ET
Wow..that was..amazing. I was almost crying too because I felt like I was sitting there. Bernadette has a South Park hat? lol..that's something I wouldn't expect.
~* Megan *~
| jmslsu01
Registered User
Registered:
6/9/2003
From:
northern VA | posted: 10/22/2003 at 7:21:10 PM ET
That was lovely,hon. Thanks so much. I didn't see any typos-don't worry about them. I know when I'm caught up in something that I write as fast as I can type.
Jenn
| Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
24.187.183.x | posted: 10/22/2003 at 8:28:19 PM ET
bernadette has a south park hat?
|  Linnie4Bernadette
Registered User
Registered:
12/8/2002 | posted: 10/22/2003 at 10:05:07 PM ET
UCF,
One word to describe your post....AMAZING! You have such a wonderful gift for writing. I thank you so much for sharing this with the rest of us. I literally felt as if I were sitting at the Shubert Theatre in the very first row of the orchestra as I read through your post. Simply breathtaking! After reading this, I had goodbumps and tears were streaming down my face. It's been awhile since I've relived this moment as I haven't been to Gypsy since June (I'm having serious withdrawals!), I thank you once again for taking me back.
I must get back to the Shubert!
P.S.
I purchased It Runs in the Family and watched it this evening. Very cute movie! Bernadette was brilliant as usual
| UCFGuardgirl
Registered User
Registered:
6/15/2003
From:
New York City | posted: 10/22/2003 at 10:16:54 PM ET
Eventually, when I get my scanner shipped up to me from Florida, I'll scan in the photo. Bernadette most definitely has a South Park hat. It's a very subtle, oddly chic South Park hat, but a South Park hat, nonetheless. It just sort of... topped off the outfit, I don't know why. Maybe the hat made her seem like a big kid? That might have been it.
The entire ensemble: black patent boots, black pants, furry black, fleece overcoat, crisply tied red scarf, curls pulled in a braid over one shoulder, and a Cartman cap.
***************
Rose: Mr. Weber, you left me right in the middle of a sentence.
Weber: Madam Rose, you're always in the middle of a sentence.
---- GYPSY
|  moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 10/22/2003 at 10:39:36 PM ET
I've removed the picture because other pictures I didn't post links to are being looked at. UCF Guardgirl will probably post her picture soon.
| UCFGuardgirl
Registered User
Registered:
6/15/2003
From:
New York City | posted: 10/22/2003 at 10:44:49 PM ET
can't tell from that pic, but it was mostly black. So it could've been. I'll scan in the picture eventually.
***************
Rose: Mr. Weber, you left me right in the middle of a sentence.
Weber: Madam Rose, you're always in the middle of a sentence.
---- GYPSY
| StinKerRoadMann
Registered User
Registered:
8/7/2003 | posted: 10/22/2003 at 11:14:32 PM ET
Moljul, that's a cute picture. I saw the rest of your pictures and there's so many of Bernadette. Do you have any of you with her?
**Kristen**
| BroadwayQueen06
Registered User
Registered:
9/3/2003 | posted: 10/22/2003 at 11:18:39 PM ET
Oh my God. UCF, you made me feel like I was there with you in the audience witnessing what must be the greatest thing known to man. I printed out your review just so I could have it for myself. You know it's eight pages long? Anyway, you really do have so much writing talent. You write very passionately which is something I think many authors lack nowadays.
I nominate UCF to write the first Bernadette biography!!!
Rachel
| moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 10/22/2003 at 11:20:09 PM ET
No. Most of those pictures are just ones I saw on the internet and I copy them on to my hard drive. I don't know why. :-) Maybe so if one day someone is talking about Bernadette's South Park hat, I can put up a picture of it. LOL I didn't think I had that many pictures on my webspace. It's probably mostly pictures I put on there so I could talk about them on this site. Ha Ha
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