A 'Gypsy' In Need Of A More Dynamic Star
By Melody Udell in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 27, 2014 9:30PM
Chicago Shakespeare Theater's production of Gypsy.
Playing mama Rose—the self-aggrandizing stage mother in Stephen Sondheim’s towering 1959 musical Gypsy—is no easy task. You’ve got to have a certain brashness, a ferocity, a willingness to steamroll your way into people’s hearts (and, more importantly, onto the stage). And while Canadian actress Louise Pitre is giving it her all in the current production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, she’s not the powerhouse—think Patti LuPone, Ethel Merman and even Drury Lane’s Klea Blackhurst—that she should be.
Director Gary Griffin, in a conscious decision to bring in Pitre instead of casting a local, perhaps more formidable actress, might have been looking for a Rose with a scaled-down presence. But as a steely, determined mother desperately trying to shove her children into stardom with washed-up vaudeville acts, Rose needs to own the show—and Pitre just isn’t the larger-than-life character at the heart of it all. After all, we need to believe that Rose, having already driven her obviously more talented daughter to seek fame on her own accord, would then lead her other daughter to become a burlesque star. (Not what either of them imagined, but a stage is a stage.)
Where Pitre is at her best is when singing Sondheim’s lighter duets, like the charming “Together, Wherever We Go” which she sings with her tomboy daughter Louise (Jessica Rush) and long-suffering love interest and agent Herbie (the unfortunately forgettable Keith Kupferer). The three have just learned that June (a winning Erin Burniston), the daughter on which Rose hung all her stage hopes, has struck out on her own—driven away by Rose’s unflinching vision of June’s success. The demand for vaudeville acts has dried up, and in a last-ditch effort to book a gig for Louise and her gaggle of tap-dancing sidekicks, the group winds up headlining in a house of burlesque. Ultimately, Rose gives in to her shame and drives Louise to try burlesque—after a little instruction from the theater’s bawdy regular performers (Barbara Robertson, Molly Callinan, Rengin Altay). Jessica Rush’s transformation from awkward wallflower to burlesque performer is quick, but not rushed. You’re rooting for her to come into her own, even if that means forgetting her morals to soak up the burlesque spotlight.
Louise, now a newly minted burlesque star and renamed Gypsy Rose Lee, shines on Kevin Depinet’s gilded set, which transitions easily from a dusty Midwestern train stop to a glistening burlesque stage and everything in between. And with the 14-piece orchestra set high above the stage, it’s easy to get lost in Jule Styne’s familiar tunes.
But despite how grand the show looks and sounds, a show like Gypsy is all about the star. And this Rose, while she has an intriguingly gritty, down-to-earth appeal, can’t quite muster the dynamic energy that defines her character and enraptures audiences.
The show runs through Sunday, March 23 at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 E. Grand Ave., 312-595-5600 or online.