Gypsy

Up until last year the only musical I had been to was Avenue Q, a cuddly- if irreverent - parody of Sesame Street. Up until that point, I thought musical theatre was all wavy hands and whitened teeth, a cheeseboard of sugar and schmaltz. However, watching Avenue Q slice and dice a kids show via songs on racism, pornography and schadenfreude challenged my preconceptions and made me acknowledge the genre may be broader than I thought.

I think the reason for my prejudice dates back to a story a friend told me about his date with an ex-girlfriend. Wanting to impress, he agreed to go to the theatre with her. The theatre wasn’t usually his thing, but we all do things when we’re first courting - pull out chairs, open doors, shower, go outside to fart – so he thought he’d give it a go. Anyway, it would be nice to do something different: to play at sophistication by hobnobbing London's suits and dresses. When he arrived though he did not see anyone dressed to impress; instead his eyes alighted on what can only be described as a fashion wreckage: pulled from the cultural rubble was a debris of people all wearing Steps tour t-shirts. Why was everyone wearing the football kit of a defunct 90’s pop band? Was it the West End’s answer to East End irony? How could this monstrosity be explained?

And then above him, he saw them: posters huge, posters high; on them, teeth sparkling, teeth whitening; a totalitarian rally re-imagined by Colgate. H from Steps was here. H from Steps was here to perform? In a leading role? Doing solos? Singing live? Without backing track? With musicians?  It’s a wonder my friend didn’t break up with the girl there and then, citing musical differences. But ever the hero, he sensed an anecdote for a friend’s future blog, so heroically he journeyed into the underworld, suffering a barrage of botched notes and auditory torment, and returned home, clutching a ‘you weren’t there man’ Vietnam vet' story.

"The horror. The horror."

I hold that ‘H from Steps’ anecdote responsible for my ignorant opinion of musical theatre. I didn’t always view musical theatre as ‘the boards’ bastard child; I know I didn’t because as a child my favourite film was Oliver. I would watch it all the time, particularly at Christmas when it would become as much a part of the holiday season as mince pies and cream. Dickens' books were larger than life and the musical showcased this with effervescent choreography and sing-a-long choruses. I still know all the words and actions to ‘Food, Glorious Food,’ ‘Pick a Pocket or Two’ and ‘I’ll Do Anything’ and can be found performing them to my girlfriend free of charge. (She prefers my rendition of ‘I’ll Do Anything,’ enjoying the love at all costs sentiment; she does not like my ‘Pick a Pocket’: so brilliant is my sleight of hand re-enactment of it, she wrongly spends her afternoon turning up the sofa, only to find me beaming back at her, revealing her ‘lost’ Pandora bracelet.) Oh, what larks!

"Please mum, can I watch Oliver again."

My girlfriend has a love of musical theatre that is partly down to her friend being a genuine star of it. In a previous blog I wrote about Clare playing the leading role in the Paris revival of Singin’ in the Rain. Watching her tackle a triumvirate of challenges in the artistic triathlon that is singing, acting and dancing re-awakened the little Oliver within me (I know that phrase sounds suspect) and made me truly appreciate musical theatre. This week we went to see Clare perform again; this time playing youngest daughter, June in Gypsy.

Normally before I go and see anything I’ll research the hell out of it, reading online reviews, customer appraisals, Wikipedia entries and actor’s interviews, rendering my actual going a pointless activity in confirming what I’ve already heard. For once though, I forgot to do my research. I knew next to nothing about Gypsy. I knew it was about a pushy mother. I knew the lyrics were written by musical legend, Stephen Sondheim, but other than that I knew nowt. I can now say that Gyspy is one of my all-time favourite theatre experiences, owing in part to the career-defining performance of Imelda Staunton. Although I haven’t seen Spacey at The Old Vic, McKellen in Waiting For Godot, Olivier’s Hamlet; I believe last Saturday I saw a genius at work.

BAFTA winning, Imelda Staunton.

Staunton plays Rose Lee, a small woman harbouring a monstrous ambition. Her goal is to turn her youngest into a star of the Vaudeville. Occupying a Seattle creak and leak apartment and having no material wealth would typically make some people believe fame and fortune weren’t for them, but Rose Lee isn’t Some Person:  having nothing only makes her more determined to be the one who ghostwrites her daughter’s rags to riches story. Gypsy then is a tale of what happens when dreams become obsessions, and what happens when obsessions become someone’s undoing. It is utterly enthralling- full of wit, verve and pathos, a world away from the jazz hands and smiles that wrongly caricature the genre.

Rose Lee is an enduring character of stage and screen because for all her grotesquerie, she is magnificently real. There isn’t a person in the land whom hasn’t met a parent – or been a parent – who lives vicariously through their child. It is natural to want your child to have a better life than you, but where Rose goes too far - and gets it wrong- is she confuses aspiration for love; this is a parent’s perennial fear, and a good reason why many older people watch with uneasy recognition.

The musical is so called because it is based on the real-life memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee. In Act 1 of the show Gyspy does not exist – or she does, but in the form of Louise Lee, Rose’s eldest daughter. Louise lives in the shadow of her sister’s spotlight: where June is pigtails and curls, Louise is tomboy and crop; where June is vacuous and flighty; Louise is thoughtful and headstrong. It isn’t until her sister cuts the apron strings and kicks out of town that Rose considers her eldest. Unwilling to give up on a dream and desperate to scrape a living, Rose waves her magic wand and morphs her put-upon daughter into the Burlesque queen, Ms Gypsy Lee. Previously Rose was dismissive of Burlesque, seeing it as no art form whatsoever; her about-face then is done out of need, not want. With Rose’s 'project stardom' realised, it’s not long before she sets about dismantling it, chastising her daughter for being a star in the wrong sky.

The final number in Gyspy is ‘Rose’s Song,’ a lament on what Rose believes is owed to her. Negotiating the contradictions of this pitiful-defiant howl requires an actress who through inflection and genuflection can achieve the impossible task of making a hero out of a villain, a beast out of a heroine. Staunton manages it. Her performance is big and bursting, filling the capacious environs of the Savoy Theatre with ease; it is also an exercise in tone and gesture, reminding the audience, however huge the character may be this is a person raging against the dying of the spotlight. On hitting the final note, the auditorium rose to their feet to celebrate what was a tour-de-force performance. Britain’s Got Talent and political party conferences have made a mockery out of the ancient art of vertical adulation, but the audience of The Savoy were right to raise themselves that night because what we saw was something special. I urge you to do the same.