GYPSY. To 22 October.
Dundee
GYPSY
book by Arthur Laurents lyrics by Stephen Sondheim music by Jule Styne
Dundee Rep Theatre To 22 October 2005
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat 8, 15, 19, 22 Oct 2.30pm
Audio-described 15 Oct 2.30pm (+Touch Tour 1.45pm)
BSL Signed 20 Oct
Runs 3hr 15min One interval
TICKETS: 01382 223530
www.dundeerep.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 October
Song, dance, drama, all at perfect pitch.Dug-up streets put travelling to the Rep by car on a level with a quest to Castle Perilous. It's possible, but allow plenty of time. At least, at journey's end, there's a magnificent evening, its scaled spectacle perfect in this revival of Broadway's bio-musical about sophisticated American stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, still alive and working when the piece premiered in the late fifties.
Taking clothes off was never Gypsy's main point, and it's late on before she features in the musical (based on her memoirs) anyway. Bestriding the action is mother, Mama Rose, while the first act focuses on Gypsy's little sister June, the daughter with stage ambition. It's only when she runs from mother's influence that older sister Louise is pushed into the limelight by a single-minded parent who won't give up on showbusiness.
For the title character is neither a Gypsy, Rose nor Lee, taking shyly to the stage when family fortunes and the old style vaudeville mother's fixated on both decline, leaving Mama Rose and her troupe in downmarket, garment-shedding burlesque. If Emily Winter doesn't quite bring on the star-stuff as Gypsy rises through America's stages, she contributes clearly to her mother's tragedy. The resilient, resourceful mother instinctively using every trick in the book to push her daughters' success, ends abandoned, Anne Louise Ross wandering alone on the bare stage in the closing moments.
Winter's previously shown the sensible, retiring Louise to perfection, just as Gail Watson's given us the instinctive performing sister, working through cutesy routines that stay more the same as Mama claims to rejuvenate them, with a performing troupe all kept juvenile against calendar truth as Mama stays in charge of her theatrical tribe.
Rita Henderson's splendid choreography shines with both initial children and later young adult casts there was a superb baby Jane on opening night with a zinging, strobe-lit routine as kids transform into teenagers. But Dundee's Ensemble also provides dramatically compelling characterisation. There's plenty of comedy when called for, but darker moments are never glutinous (as so often in musicals), thanks to James Brining's detailed direction and Ross's intense, determined tragic survivor.
Tessie Tura/Renee: Kathryn Akin
Yonkers/Willy: David Barrett
Pop/Mr Goldstone/cigar: John Buick
Georgie/LA/Pastey: Keith Fleming
Weber/Kringelein/Mikss Mazeppa/Bougeron-Cochon: Barrie Hunter
Miss Cratchitt/Miss Electra: Irene Macdougall
Uncle Jocko/Herbie: Robert Paterson
Tulsa/Phil: Richard Roe
Mama Rose: Anne Louise Ross/Kathryn Akers (mats 15, 19, 22 Oct)
Angie/Photographer: Philip Scutt
Louise: Emily Winter
June/Agnes: Gail Watson
Torreadorables: Sarah Blanc, Kim Brymer, Sarah Manning, Cheryl McIntosh, Mairi Phillips
Baby June: Abbigail Cleary/Morgan Hutchison
Young Louise: Kristen Evans/Madeleine Grieve
Newsboys: Connor Blackmore, Douglas Clark, Benjamin Flack, Cameron Harrow, Michael MacGillivray, George Ogilvie, Ross Tolland, Edward Wade
Children: Daniel Bruce, Amy Fraser, Olivia Hood, Josh Kiernan, Hannah Matthew, Sophie Taylor
Director: James Brining
Associate Director/Choreographer: Rita Henderson
Designer: Neil Warmington
Lighting: Jeanine Davies
Musical director/Arranger: Hilary Brooks
Costume: Phyllis Byrne
Singing Tutor: Lorna Brooks
Accent coach: Lynn Bains
2005-10-04 11:02:38