Gypsy really is the ticket to die for

Imelda Staunton with cute dog (Nessie/Scampie)

It’s not often that you can, with at least a modicum of justification – claim that some theatrical production or other is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ event (the ephemeral nature of every single live performance apart).

But it’s not that great an exaggeration if we’re in the UK and talking about Gypsy, the 1959 show penned by Jule Styne (music) and Stephen Sondheim (libretto), with a book by Arthur Laurents.

Remarkably, it took 14 years for it to see the light of day on the London stage in the first place (with Angela Lansbury), and has now taken a staggering 22 years to earn a revival.

Possibly it’s suffered from being so closely associated with Ethel Merman – she of ‘plants her feet, leans back and hits the back row of the auditorium’. How can you compete with such an icon? Who do you cast in that amazing role?

Of course, that’s all bound up with the legend – including how Merman didn’t get the role she created on stage when it was filmed in 1962, with the plum part of Rose going to Rosalind Russell.

I’d suggest that most British musical lovers who didn’t see that 1973 London production are mostly familiar with the show from either the recording of the original Broadway production or the film. In my case, it’s the former.

Yet setting all this aside, what makes Gypsy’s absence even more of a mystery is the place that it occupies in the musical theatre canon, being widely considered to be one of the greatest musicals ever written – if not the greatest.

So now that this Chichester transfer has landed in the West End we have an opportunity to assess the vehicle itself, together with a production that has itself garnered massive praise last autumn.

Both have a question to answer: is the hyperbole fair?

For anyone who doesn’t know, the plot – based on a true story – sees Rose, the apotheosis of pushy showbiz mothers, trying to drive her two daughters to vaudeville success.

But vaudeville is dying, the act is nauseatingly bad and, when the ‘talented’ one of her daughters – ‘Baby June – quits, everything looks over for Rose’s dream.

She cannot give up, though, and pushes on, replicating the same act, but with her other daughter, Louise, now taking centre stage.

And when she forces Louise to fill in for a missing performer at a down-at-heel burlesque theatre, you know that it’ll end in tears.

But the tears are not Louise’s, who is ultimately liberated by the experience, learning that she’s a sexy, grown woman, instead of the clunky, talentless child that she had been lulled into believing herself to be.

With daughter freeing herself from her mother’s smothering grasp and embracing stardom for herself, it is Rose that is left to realise that she has lost everything.

Rose is a magnificent creation in the tradition of the classic tragic hero. Deeply flawed, she’s been described as a musical theatre answer to Lear, but there are also valid comparisons with Brecht’s Mother Courage: since both see their children as commodities, and both lose them as a result.

Is Rose really utterly selfish, trying to live her own thwarted dreams vicariously through her children or is she a genuinely loving mother, or somewhere in between?

And there you have an illustration of the complexity of Rose. Thus the audience cannot see her simply, but has to engage with that character and with the story on a different level to that of many musicals.

Peter Davison and Imelda Staunton

Not that the creative team neglected the smaller roles. Herbie, who becomes both an agent for the troupe and also Rose’s lover (on a promise to become husband number four), has depth about him too.

And then, of course, there is Louise, who becomes the eponymous Gypsy of the title, and who has to develop from gauche tomboy to sophisticated stripteaser.

Indeed, what do you expect when that team included a Sondheim? No other writer – as composer, as librettist and as both – has ever, so consistently, created works of musical theatre that address real human emotions and flaws to the degree that he has.

There are some stonkingly great songs here: Everything’s Coming Up Roses, Let Me Entertain You and Together among them. Styne came up with a perfect Broadway score – a blessing, perhaps, of Merman saying she’d refuse the role if someone as unknown as Sondheim was allowed to write the music.

Given that Sondheim had already been asked to do precisely that – and had accepted – this could have been disastrous. Fortunately, his mentor, the great Oscar Hammerstein II, convinced him to work with Styne as lyricist.

And it paid off, because the lyrics are superb.

But now to look at this production specifically.

Jonathan Kent’s direction is top-notch, while Anthony Ward’s work on set and costumes is also excellent.

On the performances, first, a mention for Anita Louise Combe, Louise Gold and Julie Legrand as the three strippers who explain to Louise that You Gotta Get A Gimmick. It’s a brilliant, funny routine – retaining, indeed, the original Jermone Robbins choreography.

Lara Pulver is excellent as Louise: utterly convincing both as the clunky child and the sophisticated stripper.

Peter Davison is a fine Herbie, giving some grounded warmth to proceedings. No, he’s no great singer – but neither were Jack Klugman or Karl Malden in the original stage production and film.

And then we come to Imelda Staunton as Rose.

Polish the awards right now.

This is a stupendous, electrifying performance.

The Other Half said that he’d never seen a theatrical denouement as powerful since seeing Glenda Jackson do Mother Courage at the Mermaid – and that’s a long time ago and a massive compliment.

Lara Pulver and Imelda Staunton

She ranges from the wheedling to the fun-loving to the victimised to the angry and the self-deluded with consummate ease. The breakdown scene at the end is utterly gut-wrenching.

This reading of Rose is a phenomenally subtle, detailed and powerful one.

Vocally, Staunton can do everything from the gentle right up to the belters. She’s hardly new to Sondheim – having played the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods, (1990-’91) as well as Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd just three years ago. Indeed, it was after seeing that performance that Sondheim himself told her that she had to play Rose.

She takes the show and makes it absolutely her own – just as Gypsy demands.

Rarely will you see a standing ovation even before the piece has entirely finished, but as the final note of Rose’s Turn  dies away, it is impossible not to rise.

This is musical theatre with knobs on. And then with gilt on the knobs.  And then with gilt on the gilt. The run has now been extended until November – if you haven’t got the clue yet, let me put it simply: get a ticket if you possibly can.

And in the remote case that I haven’t made myself clear: Gypsy is one of the very best things to arrive in the West End for years, so go and see it!

Camp heaven with Pink Martini and The Von Trapps

Pink Martini

There are times in life when something happens that, however quirky and however surreal, it is perfectly suited to the situation.

Last week, finding myself singing along with four members of the von Trapp family to the Lonely Goatherd, was just such an occasion.

It was Thursday, toward the end of what could only be described – at its most polite – as a bit of a bitch of a week, and The Other Half and I found ourselves traipsing out west for the evening.

It had been six months ago that I’d booked tickets to see Pink Martini at the Eventim (Hammersmith) Apollo.

A 10-12 piece combo that founder and classically-trained pianist Thomas Lauderdale has called a “little orchestra”, it has also been variously described as being “somewhere between a 1930s Cuban dance orchestra, a classical chamber music ensemble, a Brazilian marching street band and Japanese film noir”, performing something that’s “part language lesson, part Hollywood musical”.

Or put another way, this is an act that defies easy and lazy labels.

The Other Half was introduced to Pink Martini some years ago, by colleagues playing the 1997 album Sympathique in a bar. He bought a copy – and then introduced me to two tracks in particular: Brazil and Que Sera Sera.

They are glorious versions – the latter, a haunting track, redolent of a ghostly fairground – and for someone who still loves all that old-fashioned Hollywood glamour, it was a perfect sound, although it should be pointed out that the Pinks organised and performed in a concert for the Occupy movement a couple of years ago, so for all that rather privileged backgrounds of some members, they’re hardly ‘Establishment’.

We have, in the years since, got most of their albums, but had never quite managed to catch them on stage – and indeed, had heard from someone who had seen them live, that they were a little ‘too perfect’ and a little flat live.

But six months ago, when tickets for a tour became available, I snapped up a pair – and then promptly forgot about it.

By Wednesday, when The Other Half reminded me, I was almost relieved not to be able to find the tickets anywhere: the last thing I felt like was trekking out to Hammersmith.

The following morning, however, Eventim proved calmly efficient at replacing the tickets and left them at the box office to collect, so there was no backing out.

Thursday turned out to be a nine-hour working day and my eyes were bugging as we caught the Tube west.

The Von Trapps

A hot dog from a van, followed by a (vastly overpriced) glass of Zinfandel rosé in the Art Deco bar served as preparation.

The crowd was still sparse when the house lights dipped and the quartet of The Von Trapps came out on stage.

Sofia, Melanie, Amanda and August are four of six siblings, grandchildren of Werner von Trapp, the fourth son of Captain von Trapp and step-son of Maria.

As one of the girls told us, in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s version of their story, Werner is renamed and becomes the boy who introduces himself to Maria as “I’m Kurt and I’m incorrigible” (oh, I remember the scene exactly).

This all won bursts of applause from some in the audience.

Anyway, in opening the concert, the half-hour set by this young group was charming and thoroughly enjoyable. It included a lovely cover of Dream A Little Dream and a new song that they had penned themselves, Storm – but nothing from ‘that’ show.

It was, though, very easy to see how they fit into the eclectic oeuvre of Pink Martini.

I was a little concerned, however, at the minimal level of atmosphere in the auditorium – which is a very large one. Would that report of a flat gig prove to be the same again?

After a half-hour interlude, on came Pink Martini themselves.

I had no need to fret. The hall was now far fuller, and it lifted as the band, with Lauderdale at the piano and China Forbes on lead vocals – looking like Callas in a flowing, black number – took the evening by the scruff of the neck, zipped up the rhythm and had the place rocking within minutes.

Witty spoken interludes included Forbes relating how, after making the mistake of assuming that some words they used for one of their earliest songs were out of copyright, they were sued in France – after which the French “asked us for our autographs”.

They’re playing the Follies Bergères in the next few weeks.

Lauderdale explained how he composed two different songs from the same classical root – a Schubert piece. The results were And Then You’re Gone and But Now I’m Back, the first of which features a woman angrily dismissing her lover after he’s left unexpectedly, while the latter sees him asking to be let back, and coming up with excuses as to his disappearance.

After Forbes sang the first, the second was performed by special guest Ari Shapiro – an American international reporter for National Public Radio who is now based in London, having previously been the station’s White House correspondent, and who sings (and sings very well) with the Pinks as a sideline.

The first of these songs segues easily from the Schubert to Latin beats, while the second moves into a swing style. Both are excellent.

The band seriously upset house management by inviting members of the audience to come up on stage and dance around them: it’s a big stage and there were, after all, steps on either side leading to and from the stalls.

Good-humoured chaos ensued, as a cross-generational crowd piled up the steps and others danced in the aisles, with senior house staff (“sorry to see it’s a police state”, noted Lauderdale sniffily, afterwards) desperately trying to stop the fun.

In a technological first (for this blog, anyway) I’ve managed to upload some video footage to give you an idea.

And when I say “cross-generational”, I mean it: Lauderdale had the house lights raised so as to find a 94-year-old woman who attends every London gig they play, while there were clearly children dancing on stage.

Other songs included a version of Abba’s Fernando – sung in Swedish, with Latin rhythms, and including the von Trapps as backing – which was just wonderful.

Their complex use of percussion reminds me of a drum band we encountered at a street festival in Barcelona some years ago – and which I loved then.

And a special little mention here for Timothy Nishimoto, who is not only one of three percussionists, but also adds vocals on some songs, and has some amazing dance moves.

It’s impossible to sit still to this sort of music: the woman next to me was managing – although I don’t know how, because I simply couldn’t.

And late on, the encores – almost an extra mini set – included the Lonely Goatherd with the von Trapps.

Now, if you think my previous comment of it as surreal is over done, think about it.

These were four young members of a family that has a genuinely remarkable backstory anyway, which was turned into a stage show and film that became such a smash global hit – it’s called ‘Rebel Nun’ in Argentina, by the way – that it’s been a substantial boost for the Austrian tourist industry.

Here they were, singing a song that was written for the fictionalised versions of their own grandfather and step great-grandmother.

And if you don’t think that that could ever be out-camped, it can and was – with Forbes and Shapiro teaming up to ‘do’ Barbra and Judy doing Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy.

Not forgetting, of course, that to finish things off came the Pinks’ biggest hit, Brazil, which had people congaing in the aisles.

Perfection!

It might have been a torrid week, but I cannot imagine a better antidote. Days later, the buzz remains.

Indeed, I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the very best concerts/gigs that I have ever been to.

And if you haven’t heard Pink Martini before – then do yourself a favour.

They have an excellent website and YouTube channel, which includes footage of the likes of their version of Fernando, while there are seven studio albums and they tour frequently.

pinkmartini.com

Pink Martini on YouTube