Audra McDonald Makes The Most Of Rose’s Turn

There aren’t enough dressing rooms on Broadway to contain all the expectations for the new Gypsy, George C. Wolfe’s revival starring the great Audra McDonald. Considered by theater buffs to be among the greatest stage musicals of the American canon, Gypsy now stars a performer considered among the greatest on any stage.

But along with the high hopes is the question that’s been whispered since the production was announced months ago: Would McDonald, an opera-trained vocalist prized for her impossibly pure soprano, have the grit and belt for the rough-around-the-edges anti-heroine Rose, a character entrusted with a bundle of the finest, gutsiest anthems and ballads ever written by those formidable theater creators Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim?

Would she be able to convey that unnerving combination of monstrous self-absorption and victory that is “Rose’s Turn?”

The answer is a qualified, perhaps even reluctant, yes. I can’t recall a better wrong-for-the-part performance in recent memory than McDonald’s Rose.

Supported by a fine roster of co-stars – notably Danny Burstein as Herbie, Joy Woods as Louise and Jordan Tyson as June – McDonald gives – no surprise here – an impeccable dramatic performance. That is, she brings all of her formidable gifts to convey and conquer the obsessed drivenness of the stage mother to end all stage mothers, a woman who pushes her two young, begrudging daughters onto stage after stage for no reason other than to boost her own ego and live her unlived life through the kids, until finally she has the shy Louise turn stripper only because it’s her – read: Rose’s – final chance at stardom. (The new Broadway play The Hills of California features a plot shocker that the 1959 Gypsy could only hint at: A young daughter pushed into sexual sacrifice to advance the ambitions of a needy stage mother).

Less convincing is McDonald’s occasionally jarring vocal performance. There’s no disputing that she’s an amazing singer, one of the best on Broadway. Yet her frequent jumps from her chest voice – the rafter-raising belt most associated with Rose – and her head voice – the velvet soprano so prized by the six-time Tony winner’s legions of devotees – takes us unsettlingly out of the moment. Momma Rose starts a verse; McDonald finishes it.

So, that caveat out of the way, Wolfe’s Gypsy, which replaces the original Jerome Robbins choreography with new dances by the fabulous Camille A. Brown, easily takes its place among the long line of memorable Broadway Gypsys and their stars, Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone (and, in a 1993 TV movie, Bette Midler), belters all.

You know the based-on-real-life-story: Vaudeville, stage mother, chosen child Baby June rankles under mom’s control, runs off as soon as she’s old enough for an acting career, leaving wallflower Louise to become Mama’s new choice for the spotlight. When that doesn’t quite work out, Rose sets her sites on the hated burlesque, and the heretofore meek Louise finds her true calling as a high society ecdysiast, becoming the world famous Gypsy Rose Lee.

Wolfe, reuniting here with McDonald following their pairing in 2016’s Shuffle Along, makes some bold choices, not least is bringing in Brown for a fresh take on the choreography. Brown doesn’t entirely abandon the great Robbins moves, but her energetic approach brings some novelty to the proceedings. The only misstep, so to speak, is the famous scene when the young dancers in Rose’s traveling troupe are replaced mid-dance by their older selves, a marker of the passage of time. Brown, unlike Robbins, places Rose front-and-center in the transition, cluttering the stage with unnecessary business while erasing the subtle transformations that make the scene so powerfully resonant.

Equally bold is the casting of Black actors in most of the primary roles. What Wolfe does not do, sadly, is acknowledge race within the story the way, for example, that Miranda Cromwell’s 2022 Broadway production of Death of a Salesman, starring Wendell Pierce and Sharon D Clarke, did without resorting to any woke updating of the book and score.  (There had been rumors that the musical’s vaudeville circuit would become the Chitlin Circuit, or in some way recognize and tell the story of race within the confines of the plot.) No mention is made or attention drawn to, for example, the interracial pairing of McDonald’s Rose with Burstein’s Herbie. It’s a legitimate dramaturgical choice, and the basic premise of colorblind casting. But with so many recent stage revivals taking big conceptual risks and largely succeeding – Oklahoma!, Sunset Blvd., Cabaret At The Kit Kat Club, Cats: The Jellicle Ball – this Gypsy can’t help feeling like a missed opportunity.

What this Gypsy does well – Santo Loquasto’s backstage vaudeville set design, Toni-Leslie James’ costumes that miraculously convey hard times without sacrificing aesthetic panache, Mia Neal’s appealing hair and wig design – it does very well. Mostly that means the score, a surefire collection of the best classic stage musicals have to offer. “Small World” makes the absolute best of the disparate styles of McDonald and Burstein, a delightful melding; “If Mama Was Married,” the wistful duet between Louise (Woods, as good here as she was in her recent showstopping turn in The Notebook) and June (Tyson, another Notebook alum who very nearly runs off with this show; the character’s early exit never felt so lamentable).

Two of the musical’s most beloved production numbers get their due here, with Kevin Csolak making fine use of his spotlight moment with “All I Need Is The Girl,” aided both by Woods’ Louise and Brown’s updated choreography. Then there’s the second-act jewel “You Gotta Get A Gimmick,” a song and dance certainly in the all-time top tier of musical theater comic numbers. The tough-as-nails strippers with their unmistakable hearts of gold schooling the naive (but eager) Louise in the profane art of the flesh flasher never lets us down. Adding to the pleasure, Wolfe and Brown conspire to give us the full benefit of the joyous talents of Lesli Margherita (as Tessi Tura), Lili Thomas (Mazeppa) and Mylinda Hull (Electra), strutting their stuff to the lip of the stage, delighting the audience.

Another late-in-the-show number well worth waiting for is Louise’s “Let Me Entertain You,” in which her self-consciousness falls away like so many veils and elbow sleeves.

And finally there is the inevitable “Rose’s Turn,” that very definition of the showstopping 11 o’clock number in which Rose’s pent-up ambitions and decades of resentments come roaring to the fore. There’s often a temptation to add one eruption too many – Tyne Daly famously slapped the floor – and McDonald doesn’t sidestep the urge. She plays down the soprano trills successfully enough, but in their place she chews more scenery than might be necessary. There’s no denying her power, here and throughout this revival. Her Rose is her Rose (just as – let’s not forget – her Billie Holiday was her Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill) – and who are we to do anything but treasure its fragrances?

Title: Gypsy
Venue: Broadway’s Majestic Theatre
Director: George C. Wolfe
Book: Arthur Laurents
Music: Jule Styne
Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Cast: Audra McDonald, Danny Burstein, Joy Woods, Jordan Tyson, Kevin Csolak, Lesli Margherita, Lili Thomas, Mylinda Hull, Jacob Ming-Trent, Kyleigh Vickers, Marley Lianne Gomes & Jade Smith, Natalie Wachen and Tryphena Wade.
Running time: 3 hrs (including intermission)