ANYONE CAN WHISTLE at Southwark Playhouse - Here we go again...

It is twelve years since I last saw the 1964 Stephen Sondheim musical ANYONE CAN WHISTLE; I came out of that production thinking "great score, lousy book".  I came out of the Southwark Playhouse this week thinking "Great score. lousy book".  

Well it's consistant.

After reluctantly writing the lyrics for two now-classic Broadway musicals WEST SIDE STORY (1957) and GYPSY (1959), Sondheim finally had his debut sole Broadway composing credit with A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (1962) but was disappointed that despite it's success - and Tony Award for Best Musical - his score was largely overlooked, not even getting nominated for the Best Score Tony.  

Ironically, he always cited his first good notices as being the London critics who pointed out the quality of his FORUM lyrics.  However back in New York Sondheim teamed up with Arthur Laurents, who had written WEST SIDE STORY and GYPSY, and started work on a new musical ANYONE CAN WHISTLE.

As writer and director, Laurents was probably too close to it and following a disappointing out-of-town try-out, it opened on Broadway after twelve previews to mostly negative reviews and closed after nine performances.  The show's one good luck was that the original cast recording was released so the marvellous vocal performances of Angela Lansbury, Lee Remick and Harry Guardino could be enjoyed while Sondheim's 1970s elevation to Musical Genius status made the record a cult success, with individual songs gaining an independant life in cabaret setlists.

WHISTLE has never been revived on Broadway but has appeared in semi-staged concert performances; in London it has been bravely staged in off-West End theatres but in all it's incarnations the book has not been touched - and while Sondheim's score is of it's time but still worthy, Laurents' book has dated badly.

Laurent's clunky satire is set in a small US town, bankrupted by the corrupt mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper and her administration - sounding familiar?  They fake a 'miracle' - water spouting from a rock - to get the tourists in.  But there is uproar when the inmates from the town asylum or 'Cookie Jar', led by the head nurse Fay Apple, escape into the crowd while visiting the shrine.  Unable to tell who is insane, a stranger. Hapgood, appears and is assumed to be the new head doctor; but his theory that everyone is mad and all authority is to be mistrusted has the politicians suspicious. 

Another stranger, "The Lady From Lourdes" appears to report on the new miracle but Hapgood quickly unmasks her as head nurse Fay who also refuses to identify her 'cookies' to the authorities. Their obvious attraction is compromised however by Fay's inability to be impulsive, to "whistle". The show culminates in Hapgood being revealed as a new patient for the asylum, the politicians still in power, the 'cookies' locked up again and Fay finally able to "whistle".

The last production at the Jermyn Street Theatre played up the political angle, making the corrupt mayor and her cronies a rising fascist state while here director Georgie Rankcom has gone for a more brightly-coloured, happy-clappy approach as if the cookies had taken over the asylum. I guess with Laurents' hopelessly twee book of ham-fisted political satire which sugars it's pill by calling the insane 'cookies' it's up to the director what choices are made but I had quite forgotten Laurents' jaw-dropping climax where the patients are rounded up by head nurse Fay calling out there names: Brecht, Kirkegaard, Engels etc. Like... THUNK.  The whole approach that the mad are the sane ones is grindingly dated too.

It's a show which at least has two good roles for women and Alex Kelly is unstoppable as Mayor Cora, giving a very big performance on Southwark's small traverse stage.  No opportunity is missed to make her a comedy villainess but she does it with great timing and a voice that is still travelling when it hits the Playhouse wall.  Chrystine Symone is appealing as Fay and sings her famous numbers "There Won't Be Trumpets" and the always-affecting title song with clarity and conviction, she has a directness in the book scenes which cuts through the campness but she seems wary of playing the character's more vulnerable moments.  But as I said, they were both so good vocally I longed for the cut-on-the-road song "There's Always A Woman" between the two characters to be reinstated.

Jordan Broatch's pronoun choice in the programme is they/them; well all of them are too light for the role of Hapgood and the character's long introductory number "Simple" is probably still going on in some alternate universe; but with that chin and curls a future Dandini has been born.  

The supporting cast are all there and seem to be enjoying each others company but a little eccentricity can go a long, long way.  I did however want to mention the undeniable presence of Danny Lane as Cora's head crony Comproller Schub who played it like he secretly knew we were all there for him but gave a good performance and was adept enough to be able to ride over several prop mishaps.  Also snapps to Nathan Taylor who played the tiny role of Dr Detmold and various other characters but played them all with a big grin - and mohawk - which was infectuous.

I am sure there was a designer but they were hardly taxed while Natalie Pound's out-of-sight musicians are dangerously over-amplified.  Of course the cast all have headmikes - for the 240 seat space - which ruined "With So Little To Be Sure Of" one of Sondheim's most beautiful ballads, with ear-shattering cracks and crunches, like eggs were being thrown at a metal plate.

Despite all this, ANYONE CAN WHISTLE is not adapted from a film, a tv show, a book, and is not cobbled together from someone's CD collection; and is the only Sondheim show in London so... worth seeing for that alone.

DVD/150: THE CELLULOID CLOSET (Rob Epstein/Jeffrey Friedman, 1995)

This HBO film was inspired by Vito Russo's 1981 book "THE CELLULOID CLOSET: HOMOSEXUALITY IN THE MOVIES" showing how cinema had presented gay characters, primarily in Hollywood.

Narrated by Lily Tomlin, it starts with William Dickson's 1895 short film of two men dancing while a violinist plays and ends with PHILADELPHIA from 1993.

It includes some insightful interviewees: performers like Quenton Crisp, Tony Curtis, Shirley MacLaine, and Tom Hanks, and writers like Gore Vidal, Arthur Laurents, Jay Presson Allen and Harvey Fierstein, and academics like Richard Dyer and Susie Bright.

The emphasis on Hollywood of course skews the argument: apart from a few soundless clips the only British films mentioned are VICTIM, THE HUNGER and SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY and European cinema is represented by one soundless clip of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES!

It's remit also mostly excludes US independant cinema so John Waters' only representation is a clip of HAIRSPRAY!

Shelf or charity shop?  Currently living in the plastic storage box, THE CELLULOID CLOSET is still a keeper - the balance was redressed two years later when Channel 4 (who co-financed CELLULOID CLOSET) produced A BIT OF SCARLET which looked at British cinema's representation of gay characters. 

 

DVD/150: GYPSY (Jonathan Kent / Lonny Price, 2016, tv)

Over Easter I voted GYPSY one of my four joint-favourite stage musicals so that was a good reason to watch this television film of the most recent London revival, directed originally by Jonathan Kent and filmed for television by Lonny Price.

Of course, a musical filmed onstage will always suffer when a camera is pulling into a performance who is pushing out to the balcony but it makes up for that in capturing a production that would otherwise just live in memory and immortalising performances that need to be treasured.

One such was Imelda Staunton's explosive Rose, the unrelenting stage mother of future stars June Havoc and Gypsy Rose Lee.  Rose is called a "pioneer woman without a frontier" and as she travels around America's theatres - one step ahead of the decline of vaudeville - her manic drive is seen in Imelda's performance as driven by a deep psychological hurt.

Shelf or charity shop?  One for the shelf, Imelda's galvanising Rose is perfectly balanced by Lara Pulver as the insecure Louise who blossoms into the self-assured Gypsy Rose Lee and Peter Davison as Herbie, the man who could save Rose if she only realised it.  A great tribute to Arthur Laurents' excellent book and the glorious score by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim.

50 Favourite Musicals: 1c: GYPSY (1959) (Jule Styne / Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life. So here we are...  a year and 10 months in the making and we have reached the stage musical that is my favourite ever - and I cannot name one out of the four shows that I have left to consider.

I have tried every criteria, every angle and there is simply no way I can say that one of the four is better than the other.  So let's go... my Top Four Number One's (in alphabetical order)

First performed: 1959, Broadway Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1989, St. James Theatre, NY

Productions seen: four

Score: Jule Styne / Stephen Sondheim

Book: Arthur Laurents

Plot: Based on Gypsy Rose Lee's memoir and set against the decline of vaudeville, the unstoppable Rose travels around the country with the song-and-dance act featuring her daughters June and Louise.  Rose is obsessed with making June a star - whether she wants it or not - while Louise is overlooked emotionally.  However when June suddenly marries and quits the act, Rose switches her ambition... now Louise will be a star.  But as she can't sing or dance, how can she become a star?

Five memorable numbers: ROSE'S TURN, YOU GOTTA GET A GIMMICK,  EVERYTHING'S COMING UP ROSES, IF MOMMA WAS MARRIED, "GYPSY" OVERTURE

Despite being one of the greatest musicals ever written, there is one imbalance that every production confronts: the title character is not the one the show is built around, nor cast with a star.  Arthur Laurents was faced with adapting Gypsy's memoir while she was still alive which might explain why the character of Louise seems slightly blank.  However Louise comes into her own midway through the second act and become a match for her mother towards the end.  This is a difficult ask as Rose is always cast with powerhouse performers in a role that is proven to be one of the biggest in musical theatre so whoever is cast as Louise has to be able to step up to this.

David Merrick produced the original Broadway show as a vehicle for Ethel Merman that was to be directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, his first musical since WEST SIDE STORY.  But choosing a composer was more problematic: former Merman composers Irving Berlin and Cole Porter both declined saying they couldn't see how to approach it, so Robbins and Laurents asked their WEST SIDE STORY lyricist Stephen Sondheim as they knew he wanted to be the sole composer of a show.  But Merman refused to trust an untried composer as her last Broadway show had been written by unknown writers and she disliked the experience intently.  While happy for Sondheim to be lyricist, she asked for the music to be trusted to Jule Styne, composer of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and BELLS ARE RINGING.  Sondheim wanted to quit as he did not want to just write lyrics but his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II advised he accept as it would be an ideal chance to write for a specific - and unique - star.  As it turned out, Styne was ego-free and they collaborated well together.  Like GUYS AND DOLLS, GYPSY is a seamless show where the score and book work in a perfect relationship, the songs springing naturally out of the action and always moving the plot forward.  What GYPSY also has is one of the greatest overtures for any Broadway show, running at just over 5 minutes, it bounces you around the show's wonderfully varied moods, I particularly love the section where the gentle ballad "Small World" skips along only to be elbowed out of the way by the sleazy, strutting burlesque strip music.

The original production received 8 Tony Award nominations but lost them all to either THE SOUND OF MUSIC or FIORELLO!  Of the five actresses who have played Rose on Broadway, all have been Tony Award-nominated with Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly and Patti LuPone winning.  Lansbury also won the London Critic's Circle Award for Best Actress, the first time it had been given to a musical actress.  For the last revival of GYPSY in London, Imelda Staunton rightly won both the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards.  It is incredible to think that between Angela Lansbury in the London premiere and Imelda Staunton in it's first London revival it was a wait of 40 years... did no one think Julia McKenzie would have been a perfect Rose in the 1980s or 1990s?  I first saw GYPSY onstage in New York when Tyne Daly made the show a personal triumph in her first theatre role after finding television fame in CAGNEY AND LACEY.  I then saw Lynda Baron deliver an excellent performance in a production at Cheltenham in 1993 but then had to endure a long wait until 2008 when we saw Patti LuPone - oddly enough at the same theatre as Tyne Daly and with the same director, the book-writer Arthur Laurents.  We saw her the Saturday after her opening night - it was a surreal experience to be seeing it so soon after the critics had ordained it as The show to see - the audience screaming and clapping at everything that moved, even the dog playing Chowsie.  Patti LuPone is always an experience best seen onstage and she certainly took no prisoners, making no attempt to sugar-coat the monster in Rose, but ultimately she didn't surprise me... I got the performance I was expecting from her.  Imelda on the other hand...

Under Jonathan Kent's direction, Imelda Staunton inhabited Rose from the inside out: her tenacious, terrier-like, attack on the world to make one of her daughters a star, the tough-as-nails exterior covering up a damaged child's vulnerability, it was all there; at various points Rose is described as "always being in the middle of a sentence" and "a pioneer woman without a frontier" and that's what Imelda delivered. But truly hair-raising was how she took on the two act-closing solos where any actress playing Rose has to go from 0-to-100 in as many minutes.  Discovering June has rejected both her and the act, Rose switches her dreams to unprepared Louise by declaring "Everything's Coming Up Roses".  Staunton's Rose was so caught up in her vision that she hugged Louise to her only to cast her aside as she went for her scorching final note, button-holed with her twirling her coat around, off to start her burning new mission.  Laurents' book really comes into it's own in the final section of the musical: Louise is now Gypsy Rose Lee, the top-billed star at Minsky's Burlesque Theatre, and Rose sneaks backstage where she is not permitted.  They finally confront each other and when Rose angrily demands an answer to why she did all the fighting and pushing to get Louise her stardom, Gypsy coldly retorts "I thought you did it for me Mama". Alone on the empty stage, Rose finally releases her long-bottled-up rage at all those who have walked out on her with the scorching "Rose's Turn".  This legendary number - a mental breakdown performed to a bump-and-grind beat - is what the whole show has been building to and any actress playing the role has to be up to it's tricky challenges.  Imelda totally nailed it: the sarcasm, the anger, the despair and the mania that she had hinted at earlier all came together in an all-too-human performance.  Resisting the temptation to chew the scenery, Staunton kept it in check which made it all the more thrilling.

The remarkable thing about Laurents' book is how each of the major characters are nursing a dream:  Rose wants her daughters to have the fame and stardom denied to her, Herbie wants Rose to marry him and give up struggling to achieve her dream, Louise wants stability and the attention she is missing, June wants to break away from her mother's tyrannical grip and live her own life - even Tulsa, the dancer Louise secretly has a crush on, has his dream of being a successful dancer onstage with a female dance partner.  The only ones who don't are the three strippers Mazeppa, Tessie and Electra: they have done it all and they are past dreaming.  But what they can do is educate Louise to the secret of being a successful stripper in the magnificent "You Gotta Get A Gimmick"  I have yet to see a production where this number doesn't raise the roof.  GYPSY is a musical that, like GUYS AND DOLLS, is a tribute to the Broadway musical's Golden Age and how a collaboration between genuine artists all working to a common goal can make a timeless classic.

Merman, Russell, Lansbury, Daly, Midler, Peters, LuPone, Staunton... I mean, I know someone is going to be disappointed.  So I am going to go for the clearest video I can find which happens to be Imelda Staunton with Lara Pulver and Peter Davison in the whole last scene of Act I which leads up to "Everything's Coming Up Roses".  Until I saw it within the context of the show I never realised that what sounds otherwise like a gung-ho song of optimism is actually a song of pure delusion on Rose's part - just watch the subtle shifts in Imelda's performance as she works through the song and her physical manhandling of Louise; Louise is just a prop for Rose to get her revenge on June who has abandoned her,  It's a perfect example of Laurents' excellent book and Styne and Sondheim's perfect score serving each other to give us an unforgettable experience.

50 Favourite Musicals: 8: WEST SIDE STORY (1957) (Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life.

First performed: 1957, Winter Garden, NY

First seen by me: 1984, Her Majesty's Theatre, London

Productions seen: two
  
Score: Leonard Bernstein / Stephen Sondheim

Book: Arthur Laurents

Plot: in 1957 New York, two young gangs - the American Jets and Puerto-Rican Sharks - fight for control of the streets.  Despite this, American Tony meets Puerto-Rican Maria and they fall in love.  But when the fighting results in two deaths, Tony and Maria are trapped in a dangerous momentum...

Five memorable numbers: TONIGHT, AMERICA, MARIA, SOMEWHERE, SOMETHING'S COMING

It's just always been there.  An early memory is going to see the film version at the Gaumont in Notting Hill Gate with my mum and a neighbour - no, not in 1961 - and enjoying the colour and music but my biggest memory is the two of them bawling at the end so I joined in, not terribly sure why.  I have always been suggestible, Constant Reader.  It's stunning songs were frequently sung on television variety shows and then the film was a constant staple of Bank Holiday films on television.  It truly was and is a global phenomenon. But it nearly didn't happen at all...

In 1947, choreographer Jerome Robbins, composer Leonard Bernstein and writer Arthur Laurents attempted an updating of Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET, set in New York's Lower East Side focusing on the conflicts between Irish-Americans and Jews but it foundered on Bernstein's wish for it to be operatic and the realization that it was rehashing old themes.  This most quintessential of NY musicals was re-born in Los Angeles eight years later where the three men were working on separate projects; they decided to switch to the Upper West Side where a gang culture was growing between American teens and Puerto-Rican immigrants.  It must also be borne in mind that in the intervening years Robbins had been a 'friendly witness' in the McCarthy Communist witch hunt hearings; although they were not named by Robbins, Bernstein and Laurents had suffered from the resultant blacklisting of suspected persons.  Bernstein only wanted to write the music so when Arthur Laurents met his friend Stephen Sondheim at a party, 27 year-old Sondheim - recovering from his debut Broadway musical SATURDAY NIGHT being cancelled - was offered the lyricist role.  Sondheim was wary as he wanted to write his own material but his father-figure and mentor Oscar Hammerstein II advised he take it as working with such talents would be invaluable experience.  But two weeks before the start of rehearsals, producer Cheryl Crawford backed out; Sondheim sent the script to his producer friend Hal Prince who, after hearing Sondheim and Bernstein perform the score for him, jumped aboard.  During rehearsals, Robbins demanded a "Conceived by.." credit due to the extensive contribution his choreography had to the show; he received the credit but used it to his advantage, causing serious dissent from his collaborators.  The show opened to wild acclaim in 1957, Sondheim's lyrics almost always overlooked in reviews in the rush to praise Bernstein's music and Robbins' choreography.  For all it's shaking up of musical theatre, it only won two of it's six Tony nominations: Best Choreography and Best Scenic Design.  Carol Lawrence as Maria was the only acting nomination - bizarrely as Best Supporting Actress - but lost to Barbara Cook in THE MUSIC MAN as did the show for Best Musical!  The London production opened at Her Majesty's in 1958 and ran for two and a half years, some seven months longer than on Broadway, and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.  In 1961, the film version co-directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins - although in fact Robbins was fired during filming - exploded onscreen and went on to win ten Academy Awards, losing only one nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.  Apart from it's two Broadway and three West End revivals, WEST SIDE STORY had also had countless regional productions

I first saw WEST SIDE STORY onstage in 1984 when the production from Leicester Haymarket moved to Her Majesty's and ran for over a year.  It was the last major production to play there until THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA took up what looks like an eternal residency.  Robbins' partner Tommy Abbott - one of the original Jets on Broadway - reproduced Robbins' choreography to glorious effect and despite being note-perfect on the film version I was captivated with it when seen in it's original theatrical context.  I was also swept away by Jan Hartley's glorious Maria - it's a difficult role as Maria is the essence of purity which can be hard with more flashy characters around her but she was quite wonderful.  There was good work too from Steven Pacey as Tony, Richard Pettyfer as Riff and Lee Robinson as Anita.  In 2008 a touring 50th Anniversary production had a sold-out run at Sadlers' Wells and again, although the cast were picked for their dancing skills over their singing, it still was wonderfully powerful on stage.  In 2020 WEST SIDE STORY will be rising again: Ivo van Hove is directing a new Broadway revival and next December will see the release of Steven Spielberg's film remake.  The Variety newspaper theatre critic Hobe Morrison died in 2000 but I suspect he remembered his 1957 review of WEST SIDE STORY's Broadway opening for many years after:  

"The show seems a doubtful prospect for record album popularity and would need considerable revision as film material... at a guess it might be a sensation in London"

The obvious choice would be to include something from the film version but as this blog is about my favourite stage musicals I have chosen this dynamic version of the "Dance At The Gym" from the 2009 Tony Awards to show that while Jerome Robbins might have been difficult but his choreography is timeless.

GYPSY - now at the Savoy

Before my birthday trip to Paris - oh yes Constant Reader, I have been to Paris - I had the fabulous chance to see Jonathan Kent's revival of the classic Broadway musical GYPSY which we saw last year at Chichester.  It has now transferred to the Savoy Theatre so more people can experience the thrill of seeing Imelda Staunton's magnificent performance as archetypal stage mother Mama Rose.

I blogged about the show last year (re-read it here) but somehow Imelda's already great performance has got even better!  Scorching the silver Savoy paintwork with her act-closing solos of EVERYTHING'S COMING UP ROSES and ROSE'S TURN, Imelda seems to have dug down into Rose's character and, while still the driven and argumentative woman blind to her children's real needs, she also reveals the inner Rose - a woman damaged by her own absent mother and who has become emotionally shellacked to deflect any more hurt.  As Herbie rightfully describes her, she is "a frontier woman without a frontier". 

One of the many strengths of GYPSY is it's magnificent book by Arthur Laurents which provides the jumping off point for the actresses playing Rose and Louise but without the emotional truth of director Jonathan Kent and Imelda Staunton, the characters can sometimes come across as unlikeable.

But not here, Staunton's Rose and Lara Pulver's Louise are vibrantly human and their final confrontation scene is a titanic clash that is all too painful.  Lara Pulver is quite marvellous as the neglected Louise, all too aware of her lack of talent but who parlays that into becoming her own special creation Gypsy Rose Lee, the classy burlesque queen.

Kevin Whateley has vanished during the move from Chichester to the Savoy and Herbie is now played by Peter Davidson in a fairly anonymous performance which is the one disappointment of the production.

And of course there is the glorious score by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim which, 56 years on, sounds as fresh and magnificent as ever, especially under the music direction and new orchestration of Nicholas Skilbeck.

One of the score's great showstoppers did just that!  Mazeppa, Electra and Tessie Tura, the frowzy, hard-bitten strippers in a seedy Wichita burlesque theatre, stop their squabbling to teach Louise the most important rule of stripping YOU GOTTA GET A GIMMICK and Louise Gold, Julie Legrand and Anita Louise Combe rightfully earned a huge ovation.  Louise Gold is also covering the role of Mama Rose... now *that* would be something to see.

A special mention must go to Gemma Sutton's disgruntled Baby June and Dan Burton's Tulsa who dances the heck out of ALL I NEED IS THE GIRL.

It has just been announced that the production's run is being extended to Nov 28th - but why wait?  Book now!

Imelda's Turn: GYPSY at Chichester

This year Chichester Festival Theatre has given us very fine revivals of AMADEUS and GUYS AND DOLLS but they have topped even these with Jonathan Kent's production of the Jule Styne & Stephen Sondheim classic GYPSY, in no small part due to Imelda Staunton's stunning performance as Mama Rose.

Soon after their previous Chichester collaboration SWEENEY TODD, rumours started that Kent and Staunton would take on GYPSY which sent me into an utter to-do... could it really happen?  There has been the occasional regional production or tour but no London production for 40 years.

Yes Constant Reader, you read that correctly, 40 years.  Any number of possible Mama Roses have come and gone - whither Julia McKenzie?  There was talk that Sam Mendes' production starring Bernadette Peters would come in marking her London acting debut but it never materialised probably due to the fact that it had a troubled run on Broadway although Peters scored a personal triumph as Rose.

Up until now I had seen 5 Mama Roses: Tyne Daly on Broadway, Lynda Baron in Cheltenham, Bette Midler in the tv movie, Rosalind Russell in the disappointing film version and Patti LuPone again on Broadway.  I had thought I would never see another to match the latter's intensity.  Boy, was I was wrong.

Despite being one of the greatest musicals ever written, there is an imbalance in it as the title character is not the lead.  Arthur Laurents based his script on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee who was still alive at the time which might explain why the character of Louise feels slightly under-written compared to the more dominant role of Mama Rose, the eternal stage mother.  However Louise comes into her own midway through the second act and become a match for her mother towards the end.  This is a difficult ask as Rose is always cast with powerhouse performers in a role that is proven to be one of the biggest in musical theatre.

 

Of the five actresses who have played Rose on Broadway, all have been Tony Award-nominated with Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly and Patti LuPone winning.  In a battle of career-defining roles, Ethel Merman lost to Mary Martin in THE SOUND OF MUSIC while Bernadette Peters lost to HAIRSPRAY's Marissa Jaret Winokur.  Lansbury also won the London Critic's Circle Award for Best Actress, the first time it had been given to a musical actress.

All of which means that any actress that takes on Rose knows she is taking on a huge challenge.  Re-reading my blog after seeing the LuPone production I did say that although powerful, I also was not surprised by anything she did, she gave exactly the performance I was expecting.  Imelda Staunton also gave the performance I expected from her - but she then kept going!

It's a role she inhabits superbly: Rose's tenacious, terrier-like, attack on the world to make one of her daughters a star, the tough-as-nails exterior covering up a child-like vulnerability, it's all there in Imelda's performance.  But there are lovely touches too - her flirtatiousness attack on Herbie when they meet; her dejected capitulation when she realises the act is truly over when it's booked into a burlesque house, her crumbling into broken sobs when hugged by Gypsy at the end.

But truly hair-raising was how Staunton took on the two act-closing solos where any actress playing Rose has to go from 0-to-100 in as many minutes.  When Rose discovers her beloved daughter June has rejected both her and the act by eloping it leads to her switching her ambition to her unprepared daughter Louise by declaring EVERYTHING'S COMING UP ROSES.  Staunton launched into it with a thrilling attack, her Rose so caught up in her vision that at one point after hugging Louise, she then pushes her out of her way.  Her scorching final note was button-holed with her twirling her coat around, on her way to start her burning mission.

Laurents' book moves seamlessly along punctuated by Styne and Sondheim's glorious songs until the final, angry confrontation when Gypsy orders her mother out of her dressing-room and her life.

Alone on an empty stage, Rose finally gives vent to her long-bottled-up rage at all those who have walked out on her with the scorching ROSE'S TURN.  This legendary number - a mental breakdown performed to a bump-and-grind beat - is what the whole show has been building to and any actress playing the role has to be up to it's tricky challenges.  Staunton totally nailed it: the sarcasm, the anger, the despair and the mania that she had hinted at earlier all came together in an all-too-human performance.  Resisting the temptation to chew the scenery, Staunton kept it in check which made it all the more thrilling.

 

Lara Pulver was a delight as the less-talented, emotionally-neglected Louise who morphs into the self-assured, brittle glamour of Gypsy Rose Lee.  She captured Louise's sadness sweetly and her unrequited longing for the dancer Tulsa was also well-played, making it all the more touching when she is the one who is left alone when her sister and Tulsa elope.  All of this made her list of accusations against her mother during their face-off all the more biting.

I was surprised when Kevin Whateley was cast as Herbie but, apart from a dodgy American/Geordie accent, he was quite charming and played his character's permanent exhaustion well, especially in the scene when he is finally broken by Rose's intransigence.  Gemma Sutton also scored too as June, itching to be free of Rose's tyrannical ambition and her little-girl outfits.

One of GYPSY's great set-pieces is YOU GOTTA GET A GIMMICK, performed by the tough-as-nails strippers to an enthralled Louise in a tatty burlesque dressing room, and it was punched over by a great trio of broads: Anita Louise Combe as Tessie Tura, Julie Legrand as Electra and the wonderful Louise Gold as Mazeppa. 

Jonathan Kent's direction was seamless and strong with the main characters all feeling thought-through and 'real' while Anthony Ward's set and costume designs were a constant delight from the gaudy and glamorous vaudeville designs to the low-rent theatrical digs.  The eye-popping and colourful designs for Gypsy's LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU medley were a nice surprise.  Also adding immeasurably to the production's success was Mark Henderson's lighting design.

Stephen Mear's choreography was excitingly energetic and the show also included Jerome Robbins' original and inventive staging of both the 'transition' scene when June and Louise grow up in seconds and the YOU GOTTA GET A GIMMICK number - those moves might be 55 years old but are still great.

The Chichester run finishes this week and it will be the crime of the century if this does not transfer to London - we NEED this show in the West End.
 

Flickers Flashback...

As I said last time, my film-going this year can be split into two new, two old...

The day after seeing the Pet Shop Boys at the O2, we went to the National Film Theatre (I still refuse to call it BFI Southbank) where Neil Tennant was introducing a screening of the great Russian classic BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN which was being shown with the 2004 Pet Shop Boys score for the first time in a cinema.  Up until now it had only been shown in open-air screenings - so a big thank you to Yoko Ono for including it as part of her Meltdown festival!

 

As always, Neil gave good interview and told us of how they got involved in writing a score for the film and the challenges they overcame in getting it right, he even revealed that the score was written with the aid of a dvd which they watched while fitting the music to it!  I simply *had* to give him a huge round of applause as he exited - I hope I didn't attract too much attention wearing the new bright orange tour t-shirt.

I had seen the film before on TV (and with a rinkydink score) but you really need to see this on the big screen to get the full overpowering effect of Eisenstein's vision and the combination of the Pet Shop Boys and the Dresden Symphonic Orchestra only added to a great experience.

Sergei Eisenstein based his film on an incident during the 1905 Russian uprising which was a response to the Bloody Sunday massacre in St. Petersburg.  The sailors on the Potemkin mutinied against their officers when provided with rotten meat as rations. The ringleaders were threatened with execution on deck but rioted when one of the mutiny's leaders Grigory Vakulinchuk was mortally wounded by the Chief Officer.  He was killed along with six other officers and the ship sailed to the town of Odessa where they were greeted as heroes by striking workers who were also rioting.

 

Eisenstein builds up the tension aboard the ship until the overthrow of the officers is seen as a great moment of liberation.  The excitement of this sequence is also ramped up by the Pet Shop Boys switching to a thumping beat with the repeated chances of "Da! Nyet!" The Revolution Will Have A Disco Beat!

 

Eisenstein wasn't interested in telling a linear story, he wanted to provoke his audience to revolutionary fervour, and with the next sequence he created cinema history.  Although there were instances of the army firing on the rioters in Odessa there was no massacre as Eisenstein portrays - but why let such details get in the way of good propaganda?  In a sequence which is still as thrilling as it is shocking, the inhabitants of Odessa are chased down the massive stairs to the port by a phalanx of Tsarist soldiers shooting rifles at their fleeing backs while a troop of Cossacks waits for them at the bottom with sabres slashing down on them.  For 88 years this ground-breaking sequence has been lampooned, ripped off and copied but still is one of the most exciting pieces of film ever.

 

 

Remarkable too are the faces he found to be the most iconic victims of the massacre: the woman walking toward the advancing soldiers holding her shot child, the old woman with the shattered pince-nez and the young mother whose dying fall launches her baby's pram to bounce down the stairs.  The time has come to give these women names - they were played by Prokopenko, N. Poltavtseva and Beatrice Vitoldi respectively.

 

Nothing can equal this sequence but it is not the end of the film as Eisenstein then shows us how the squadron sent to intercept the Potemkin capitulate at the very last second, lowering their guns and joining the mutiny.  After the ratcheted tension of the Odessa sequence, the squadron section is a bit dawdling - there is only so much tension to be gained from long shots of big ships going in opposite directions but once over, I almost staggered from the cinema, bedazzled by the imagery.

 

 

As propaganda it is unsurpassed - the film was banned in the UK for nearly 30 years - although as a film it's a trifle unsparing in it's severity but it still grips like a vice.

 

Otto Preminger's BONJOUR TRISTESSE from 1958 has just been re-released in a sparkling new print highlighting the lush cinematography of Georges Périnal.

 

 

It was also re-issued the same week as the 34th anniversary of the death of Jean Seberg.  TRISTESSE was the second film she made with Preminger who had chosen her from 18,000 submissions to be the unknown star of his 1957 film ST. JOAN.  The film was panned by critics who delighted in pointing out Jean's seemingly amateur-dramatic performance.  But determined to prove the critics wrong, Preminger cast his protégée in the role of 'Cecile' in his screen version of Francoise Sagan's debut novel.

 

The precocious Cecile lives with her playboy father Raymond enjoying a close relationship despite his constant relationships.  However Cecile's position is threatened when Raymond invites his late wife's friend Anne to their holiday villa in the south of France.  Unlike the flighty young women he usually has dalliances with, Anne is more mature with a career as a fashion designer and it's not long until Cecile finds her father becoming more sober and siding with Anne against her.  Cecile decides to try and ruin the growing relationship, using her own wiles and her knowledge of her father's weaknesses, with devastating consequences...

 

 

I have seen film before but this was my first time seeing it on a big screen and it looked great.  Preminger utilises black and white for the 'modern' setting in Paris and vibrant colour for Cecile's remembrances of 'last summer'.

 

Seeing it again made me fully appreciate the nuanced performances of David Niven as Raymond and Deborah Kerr as Anne as well as the vibrant supporting performances of Mylene Demongeot as Raymond's Bardotesque girlfriend, Martita Hunt as the gambling-mad mother of Cecile's boyfriend and Jean Kent as a bored English wife on the Riviera with a roving-eye and gossiping nature.

 

Again, Jean Seberg was heavily criticised when the film was released but her performance now looks fresh and constantly intriguing.  She draws your eye constantly and Cecile's conflicting emotions are fully understandable through her.  In the 'modern' Cecile, she is brittle, bored and closed-off and looking great in her Givenchy evening dress but in the devastating closing scene, the mask slips and as she smears her face with cold cream, she cries like the lost girl she still is inside. 

 

Seberg, who was bullied relentlessly by Preminger during the filming, finally had a box-office hit in 1959 with THE MOUSE THAT ROARED and in 1960 she starred in Jean-Luc Godard's A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (BREATHLESS) and her place in film history was set.  Ahead lay the disappointing film roles, disappointing love affairs and worst of all, the effect on her mental health when she was targeted by the FBI for her support of the Black Panthers which led to her miscarrying her daughter.  In August 1979, she was found dead in her car parked a few streets away from her Paris apartment, a seeming suicide although questions over what really happened will remain unanswered.