Here is a musical about the very real mother of Gypsy Rose Lee who was a Broadway legend in her own right co-starring in musical comedies in the early 1940s–in shows that crossed the line between Broadway and Burlesque which had not happened in the ’20s when Burlesque was booming. Rose Hovick emerged with Burlesque but had more ambition than talent and more nerve than direction, and she spent her young adulthood dedicated more to merely surviving than to following dreams. She produced two hungry daughters whom she raised without a long term husband in the picture. Anxious for the success she had not enjoyed, she made the younger daughter perform as a child under the billing of “Baby June” which lasted some years until she fled Rose’s domination with the first boy who would have her. Rose’s attention then moved to her older daughter, Louise, who had had no interest in (or talent for) performing, but Rose’s need for fame and fortune relentlessly pressured Louise to “be a star” until fate opened a job for her in second rate Burlesque quickly transforming Louise into Miss Gypsy Rose Lee–a completely manufactured oddity and something Rose could live with accepting her role as creator and mentor by sheer chance.
Audra McDonald (Julieta Cervantes)
To propel Louise into the seamy world of Burlesque–and the rest of us into this Broadway musical hit–Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents have provided a lively score and book. Originally the show served the late great Ethel Merman a winning show and a formidable role as Madame Rose. But–as they used to bark “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”–the incredible Audra McDonald has brought her remarkable self to the very demanding role of Rose and raises the bar every moment she is onstage. In all my years of enjoyment of American musicals, I have never been as moved as I was watching this artist and listening to her magnificent soprano lift us into the heights. Her complete absorption of the role from the Arthur Laurents’s book elevates that as well, and I will cherish it. It’s a pity the authors are no longer with us to be dazzled as well, but wherever they are, I hope word gets through to them.
Joy Woods as Gypsy (Julieta Cervantes)