Gypsy - Review

Buxton Opera House, Buxton

*****

Music by Jule Styne

Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by Arthur Laurents

Directed by Paul Kerryson

Joanna Riding

In a joint production between the Buxton International Festival and the Buxton Opera House and for a ridiculously short run of 8 performances only, Gypsy’s caravan has pulled up in the Peak District’s spa town of Buxton. Drawn from the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, Arthur Laurents’ book is meticulously created, much as his West Side Story was an inspired interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Add in a young Stephen Sondheim penning the lyrics to Jule Styne’s magnificent score and the components were all there to create one of the 20th century’s finest musicals.

While Gypsy Rose may have been the stage name adopted by Louise, the younger daughter of Rose, this musical is all about the maniacally matriarchal Rose, with Sondheim and Laurents combining to create perhaps the most deliciously flawed woman in the canon. Abandoned by her mother at a young age, deserted by two husbands and with two young daughters in tow, Rose is determined to offer her girls – and older daughter June in particular – a career amidst the bright lights of showbiz. But this is 1920’s America, the Great Depression is biting and vaudeville is dying. The world is dog eat dog and Rose is eating dogfood so that her kids may at least enjoy cold leftovers. Is she a self-sacrificial stage-mum? Possibly. But halfway through the first act, as Louise on her birthday sings the solo number Little Lamb, revealing to the audience that as an evidently teenage girl she does not know her own age, we get a glimpse into the infernal cauldron of emotions that define her damaged mother.

Luxury casting sees Joanna Riding play Rose. There is little glamour to the role, rather the interpretation of a middle-age woman railing against the demons of desertion via song after song after song – and each one, in Riding’s interpretation, an absolute banger! From the energy of Some People, straight into the sublimely soft nuances of Small World, Riding grasps Rose’s reins, driving her character through life’s challenges and glimpsed opportunities. On stage for most of the show, Riding’s (like Rose’s) energy appears indefatigable with the actress masterfully controlling Rose’s descent into the facing of reality and recognising the impossibility of her own dream just as Louise emerges to discover her own.

Rose famously closes both acts of the show with massive solos. Riding’s take on Everything’s Coming Up Roses blithely sends the audience off for their interval gin and tonics. She ends the show however with the jaw-droppingly frantic Rose’s Turn. It is gripping to watch Riding perform and if Hamlet is famous for subjecting its leading performer to a draining swordfight in the endgame, so too did the creatives of this show make almost unreasonable demands of their leading lady when they wrote this final number and Riding is breath-taking in her portrayal of decline. 

Monique Young makes sensitive work of Louise's emergence from overlooked younger sibling to the glamour of burlesque and ultimately international stardom. There is a wry cruel wisdom to Louise’s signature song, Let Me Entertain You. The number is sung initially in the show by the young Baby June  as a novelty child-performer in a vaudeville routine.  (Credit here to Sienna May as Baby June and also to Lucy McLoughlin as Baby Louise.) By the end of the show however the lyrics are an acknowledgement of the sleazy allure of the striptease, deftly handled by Young. If there is one small criticism of the production it is that director Paul Kerryson could have made more of the young Louise’s unrequited crush on Tulsa (a young man in Rose’s performing troupe).

In another complex supporting role David Leonard is Herbie, the middle-aged, ex-agent turned candy salesman who holds a torch for Rose throughout, until he clearly sees that Rose can truly love no-one beyond herself. Leonard’s work is sensitive and well-voiced.

The second act’s brief comic respite comes from the three worldy-weary strippers that Rose and Louise encounter as burlesque beckons. Tiffany Graves (Tessa Tura), Aleisha Naomi Pease (Electra), and Rebecca Lisewski (Mazeppa) are each wonderful in their modest cameos in You Gotta Get a Gimmick. Hannah Everest puts in a fine turn as Dainty June, with Liam Dean’s footwork (alongside that of Young too, to be fair) in All I Need Is The Girl proving another treat from choreographer David Needham.

Ben Atkinson’s 13-piece orchestra make delicious work of Jule Styne’s compositions. From the opening bars of the Overture – itself one of the finest ever – their playing is lush and lavish. There is equally strong work from Phil R Daniels’ set design and Charles Cusick Smith’s costumes.

Buxton's Gypsy is one of the finest pieces of musical theatre to open in England this year. It is unmissable!

Runs until 24th July

Photo credit: Genevieve Girling

Chicago

Curve Theatre, Leicester

****

Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Directed by Paul Kerryson

Sandra Marvin and Verity Rushworth

Bob Fosse co wrote the book of Chicago. He also famously inspired the show’s choreography, which could be found on tour in the UK even up until last year. But not any more. That famously coquettish and provocative sexuality has been laid to rest and there’s a new dance style in the Windy City. Like an impetuous child, young British choreographer Drew McOnie has taken some of Broadway’s biggest numbers and re-imagined their steamy suggestiveness into a style that is entirely 21st century.

Paul Kerryson directs on the sleek modern vastness of the Curve’s main auditorium. It’s a big (and possibly expensive) space to fill, sometimes too big and if occasionally the intimacy of a bedroom scene or a lawyer's office seems dwarfed, one does not have to wait long until McOnie’s routines fill the stage. The show is such that one’s eyes are often drawn to the fascinating and complex company dance work rather than the singing lead.

The murderous partners in crime, Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart, are played by the accomplished Verity Rushworth and Gemma Sutton respectively. Both women are vocally stunning, with Rushworth flashing occasional glimpses of breathaking acrobatic talent. Not quite the finished article yet, their poor synchronisation in the eleven o’clock number Nowadays is a distraction. Nothing though that can't be mended with a spot of drilled rehearsal and a few days settling into the run.

Kerryson is at his best when exploiting the bleak humanity of Kander and Ebb’s caustic wit. The comic pathos of Amos Hart’s Mister Cellophane is a brilliant turn from Matthew Barrow, whilst the sardonic irony of Sandra Marvin’s Mama Morton singing Class with Rushworth is another gem. Credit too to Marvin’s When Your’re Good To Mama. Her Curve-filling curves deliver a thrilling sound and to quote her signature song, she sure deserves a lot of tat for what she’s got to give.

David Leonard is Billy Flynn. He does everything just fine, but somehow there’s a touch of star quality pizazz that’s lacking. Hopefully that too will develop into the run. Notably brilliant amongst the company are Adam Bailey’s Mary Sunshine and Zizi Strallen’s Mona along with her other ensemble responsibilities. One suspects that her understudy Velma will be very watchable too.

The star of the show however is undoubtedly McOnie’s dance work, enhanced by takis’ androgynously metro-sexual costumes. In Razzle Dazzle, when Flynn sings of the court room being a three-ring circus, McOnie sculpts his company, using their limbs together with ropes and harnesses to create a writhing mass of syncopated beauty. Moulding bodies into art forms, in time to the brassy rhythms of Ben Atkinson’s immaculately performing seven piece band, his images are breathtaking. See this show if for no other reason than to glimpse the future of showtune choreography.

Curve’s Chicago is a stylish Xmas offering to a city that has become accustomed to festive excellence from Kerryson and his company. Its a thrilling show and if you have a passion for innovative musical theatre, then its simply unmissable!

Chicago runs to 18th January 2014. To book tickets, click here

To read my interview with director Paul Kerryson, click here