If you’re truly going to make a “Gypsy” dance, you need to pick the right Rose.
“Gypsy,” the classic 1959 musical Theatre Tulsa is currently presenting at Tulsa PAC through May 3, is often called one of the greatest musicals of all time, if only for the talents behind it: composer Jule Styne, writer Arthur Laurents, lyricist Stephen Sondheim, director/choreographer Jerome Robbins.
It includes among its various storylines how a young girl went from serving as an extra in a family vaudeville act to becoming Gypsy Rose Lee, an internationally famous striptease artist known for putting the emphasis on the “tease” element of her act.
But the true story this musical tells is that of her mother, Rose Hovick, who spent the first half of the 20th century transforming her young daughters into showbiz stars, dragging them and their rag-tag show from one seedy venue to another.
The role of Rose has attracted actresses ranging from Angela Lansbury to Patti LuPone and Bernadette Peters because it is, in the words of critic Clive Barnes, “one of the few truly complex characters in the American musical.” New York Times writer Frank Rich opined Rose is “Broadway’s own brassy, unlikely answer to ‘King Lear.’”
Fortunately Theatre Tulsa has cultivated an impressive example of this thorny flower in Kim Frie, who delivers a volcanic performance as the mother of all stage mothers, whose iron will and maniacal focus on some elusive dream of success is as tragic a flaw as anything Shakespeare might have conjured.
We start out in the early 1920s, when Rose is endeavoring to get a song-and-dance act featuring her younger daughter, Baby June (Betty McElravy), on the vaudeville circuit. The older daughter, Louise (Lyla Knight), is usually relegated to the back of the chorus line or encased in a cow costume.
As the girls grow older, Baby June becomes Dainty June (Gigi Jenkins), although the act in which she and sister Louise (L’aria Krautter) perform doesn’t change all that much. When June becomes fed up with having to pretend being a child for years on end and decamps with a co-star named Tulsa (Joshua Terrones) with ambitions for an act of his own, Rose’s dreams of stardom shatter.
It’s one of many moments within the show Frie makes totally her own. Suddenly, she sees the daughter she has dismissed as not good enough as the glue to put those shattered dreams back together. In Frie’s exceptional performance, the song that accompanies this moment, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” becomes almost frightening in its intensity — it’s as if you’re witnessing this character’s psychotic break in real time.
And when Rose comes to the realization the dreams she has spent her life pursuing — the need to prove herself to the mother who left her years ago, her own ambitions to be on stage that she knew would never come to pass, the knowledge she no longer has control over the daughters who served as extensions of her own ego for years — Frie delivers one of the most emotionally raw and heartbreaking versions of the epic “Rose’s Turn” I’ve heard.
But Frie’s performance is not simply a series of big showy moments. Throughout “Gypsy,” she demonstrates the complexity of this character — in her manipulations of the hapless Herbie (Mike Minick), who serves as part-agent, part lap-dog, and in the way she stands up to the various men who stand in the way of getting her girls on stage.
Krautter is very good as Louise, going from awkward youngster wondering who she really is in “Little Lamb,” to slowly finding the confidence and panache to become Gypsy Rose Lee.
As June, Jenkins creates a cunning little vixen capable of saying she’s nine years old with a straight face, and giving vent to what she truly thinks of her life (“If Momma Was Married”).
Jennifer White, Jenn Courtney and Teresa Nowlin bump and grind winningly as the trio of ecdysiasts intent on schooling the young Louise in the tricks of their trade, beginning with “You Gotta Get a Gimmick.”
Theatre Tulsa executive director Travis Guillory directs and choreographs the show, as well as designing the scenery. The ramshackle sets actually work in the show’s favor. It is a tawdry story taking place in tawdry places, where things shouldn’t always work the way one might expect.
Jason Sirois served as the show’s musical director, while Mallory Lindsay designed the lighting and Jonathan Harper handled the sound.
“Gypsy” will wrap with performances at 8 p.m. Friday, May 1; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, May 2; and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 3. For tickets, call 918-596-7111 or visit tulsapac.com.
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