Hammerstein was in Philadelphia for Steve Sondheim, who made anything but a secret of his gratitude to the mentor who guided his career. But it wasn't Steve Oscar was concerned about when he saw the show in Philadelphia; it was Ethel's bow.
Gypsy is so designed that Rose is on stage alone after a number ends only once in the entire evening. Thus there is only one place for the star to receive her applause and bow in direct response to her audience—at the end of “Rose's Turn.” As written, however, just as Rose finishes and starts to bow, Louise comes on applauding, thus killing the audience's hand before it can start and getting the final scene under way. This was exactly what we all wanted. Oscar, however, felt Ethel Merman wasn't getting the applause the audience had been waiting all night to give her; and because they had been waiting in vain, they were frustrated and didn't listen to the last scene.
No matter how grandiose theatre people appear to be or perhaps even are, out-of-town can make the most hubristic unsure of anything. Philadelphia had made us unsure of everything. Even that now legendary overture: at one point new orchestrators kept arriving like immigrants. In addition, this estimation that our failure to give Ethel her due destroyed the impact of the last scene was coming from Oscar Hammerstein, aka God. His advice was heeded: at the end of “Rose's Turn,” Rose left the stage while Ethel Merman took her bow. Bows. Endless. She brought the house down and the show went out the window. No one listened to the last scene; it was even suggested it be cut. Ethel was happy, the audience was happy, and if I wasn't, how could I complain? After all, Gypsy was a musical and Oscar Hammerstein was God.
Fourteen years later, I figured out how we could have our cake and eat it.
Ethel had refused to do Gypsy in London. The consensus at the time was that without her, there was no show. By 1973, the show had begun to acquire a reputation; London was eager to see it. Angela Lansbury, who had been living in Ireland helping her children grow up, came over to London to play Rose with me directing. Just the knowledge that an actress was going to be at the core of this Gypsy made it a very different Gypsy in the preproduction in my mind. If she hadn't been Rose, I doubt I would have found how to keep those bows to the audience at the end of “Rose's Turn” and justify them. What was needed wasn't just a musical star but a superb actress and a courageous one: Angela Lansbury.
The solution didn't come from examining the five-six-seven-eight of the “Rose's Turn” choreography or the lyric or even the subtext; it came from going back to why the number was in the show and where it was taking place. Directors of musicals don't do that often enough, not even when they're trying to figure out why a number doesn't work. They'll examine the number, what came before it, the way it's being performed, even where it is in the show, but not why it's in the show. It's the why that will reveal what the number is, or isn't but should be.
When I began to write Gypsy, I began at the end. The story of Gypsy Rose Lee obviously had to climax with the striptease that gave Louise her name. But even though the show was called Gypsy—contractually, it had to be—it was about Rose. Louises strip couldn't be the eleven o'clock number; Rose had to have that. Louise would have to settle for the ten-forty-five. The catch was that whatever number Rose did, it had to top the strip, which was more than just a striptease. It was the transformation of a scared, self-esteemless, awkward girl into a confident, sexy, sophisticated young woman—and one who is almost nude to boot. How does a middle-aged woman, star or no, top that?
The answer surprised me, it came so quickly. Louise's strip is topped by another strip, this one by a desperate, crazed middle-aged woman who doesn't actually strip because it's all taking place in the only place she could strip: in her recognition-hungry head. It's Rose's turn in the limelight, and high time, too. In her head, she is the greatest striptease queen in the world; in her head, she can bring down the house; in her head, she is the star of stars and can take all those bows. Challenge: how to show they are in her head?
The stage is ablaze with ROSE in huge lights. There's a huge spotlight on Rose as she bows to thunderous applause, even cheers. … And bows again. The spot goes with her as she moves to one side and bows again. Then the ROSE lights begin to drop out. She bows again. Now the ROSE lights are gone and the stage light is diminishing. Still, she bows again. Only her spot is left now; the applause is dying out. Her spot is reduced to a dim glow. A work light comes on; the applause peters out, then ends—but not for Rose: she still hears it. She takes a slow, deep, regal bow to deathly silence—and at that moment the audience gets it: there never was any applause for Rose; it was all in her head.
When I explained this to Angie, she thought for a moment and then said: “If it doesn't work, I'll look as though I'm milking the bow.”
“It'll work, because you're good.”
She gave me a very Angie skeptical look and laughed. “Well, let's give it a try.”
We rehearsed with nobody around—no choreographer, no dance captain, just the two of us and the rehearsal pianist. She had a beautifully cut red dress for the number, but for the preceding scene in Gypsy's dressing room, she herself had bought a ratty gray cardigan in a musty store across the alley from the stage door to wear over the red dress. That sweater was what she used to propel her into the strip: she whipped it off, twirled it around, and flung it into the wings. Everything came easily and naturally to her, except the down-and-dirty vulgarity. That was as natural to Rose as being common, but not to Angie. She had to work hard to get that part of Rose. If Rose had been Cockney, it would have been a piece of cake: look at her Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd. But all of it was leading up to the unanswered question: would the audience know everything—every word, every note, every bump, every grind, every bow—was in her head? Would they get that she was bowing to applause that didn't exist, even though they themselves were applauding?
With the second bow, something odd crept into her eyes. You can read Angela Lansbury's eyes from the back of the balcony. They began to dart around. By the time all the ROSE lights were gone and she was taking the last bow in a dim spot, she had made the by-now-unsettled audience aware something was awry; just what, they weren't sure. And then, as she took that last deep bow, she smiled to no applause—to a dead silence. She was acknowledging what wasn't there. It was frightening, chilling; it brought an audible gasp from the audience. They got it.
For me as director, it was one of the most satisfying moments I have ever had. That audience went wild. Standing and applauding and cheering Angela Lansbury, yes, but it wasn't Angela Lansbury bowing to them, it was still Rose. And she never stopped being Rose. The last scene played as it never had before. Fourteen years, but oh, so worth it.
I don't fault Oscar Hammerstein: that was his truth he told. There are times, even in the theatre, when the truth can be an option. Telling it can be difficult for the director and harsh for the star. That telling depends on who is the director, who is the star, who is the producer, and who cares how much about the show and what is at stake.
During the fourth year of the run of La Cage aux Folles, when we were running out of replacements, Allan Carr, the main and original producer, came up with the name of Robert Stack. We had had bigger movie stars who were no longer movie stars—Van Johnson, for one. But Van Johnson had the musical in his bones— he had begun life as a chorus boy on Broadway. His performance was infinitely better than anyone, including Van himself, thought it would or could be. And he was a joy to have in the company. Robert Stack's principal qualification for Allan Carr was that he came from Pasadena. Pasadena makes me think of Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray planning to commit murder in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity. Or Kim Stanley working as an apprentice in the Pasadena Playhouse. What it made Allan Carr think of was Buckingham Palace: Robert Stack was his Prince of Wales. His musical credential was that he had an aunt who had been an opera singer. Reasoning of that sort was not unusual from Allan when he was coked out of his head, which also was not unusual.
At the time, Rob
ert Stack was more a star than the heavily advertised rap, pop, R&B, TV, MTV, and other DOA meteors who flashed in and out of endlessly long-running musicals— yesterday Grease, today Chicago (and Grease again), tomorrow Jersey Boys (wait!)—but he had neither stage experience nor presence. I didn't want him; both authors and all the producers did. Allan really wanted him, and like Lola, whatever Allan wanted, Allan got.
Fritz Holt—one of the producers but also the best production stage manager on Broadway—directed Stack until he was ready to go through the first act. I was called to see what Pasadena had sent to New York. Neither Allan Carr nor any of the other producers nor either of the authors showed up to cheer for their candidate. Guilt? Fear? Not confidence, not possibly. Only two people were in the auditorium of the Palace Theatre that afternoon: Marvin Krauss, the general manager who had become a producer (ipso facto a Stack advocate) and I. Fritz was fussing backstage like Rose.
To rehearse the role of a piss-elegant middle-aged queen who was the emcee/owner of a transvestite night club on the French Riviera, Stack had chosen to wear jeans, sneakers, and a monogrammed polo shirt. The outfit was dead right for the way he played the part. When the act was over and Stack was finished, Marvin, who had been shaking with silent laughter much of the time, looked over at me and whispered: “I'm sorry.”
Not sorry enough; for he got up and, before he headed up the aisle to freedom from responsibility, muttered, “See if you can get him to quit.” If an actor quit, then the producer didn't have to pay him the standard two weeks' salary he would have gotten if he'd been fired.
By the time I made my way up to the stage, there had been an exodus as from Egypt, led, not by Moses, but by the gypsies, the dancers in the show. The gypsies know everything that's going to happen before it actually happens. How they know, nobody knows. But they do, and they did that day at the Palace. Only Robert Stack didn't know. Fritz had vanished. Stack stood there alone, waiting for me to anoint him Star of a Broadway musical.
We sat on the set's furniture, upholstered in mauve silk, facing a papier-mâché giraffe that I had found in Boston and put a diamond choker on to make the set look like what people would think was “gay.” Stack in his denim jeans sat next to the giraffe, unaware of the diamond choker.
He was very pleasant as we attempted to connect. He had been in a Broadway-bound play with Eileen Heckart. A life raft to seize on: I knew Heckie; she had been wonderful in a play of mine I had also directed. She had been wonderful in the play Stack did with her, too. Where did they do the play? Oh, he and Eileen had begun in a well-known summer theatre in Ogunquit, Maine. And then Broadway? Well, no … it never did get to Broadway; actually, it never got out of Ogunquit. Ah, well, that happens. But he had musical experience? Oh, yes: he had played with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. Played what? The triangle.
I was proud of what had been made of the dicey material that was La Cage aux Folles. I loved the company. I was not about to ask them to suffer, gladly or any other way. But I didn't want Robert Stack to suffer from public exposure merely because Allan Carr was a Pasadeniac, and I also didn't want the show stuck for that two weeks' salary.
I ran through all the truisms with the hopeful star. Musicals are very difficult to do if you haven't done one before—on the road, at a dinner theatre, on a cruise ship, someplace, let alone Broadway. Stack nodded. Then there's the difficulty of singing with an orchestra for the first time while on a Broadway stage for the first time. Stack nodded. Whatever I dredged up just brought that pleasant, understanding nod. Finally, a deep, decisive breath and I dove in: he could be doing himself a disservice if he went on. No luck: he nodded; he was prepared for the risk. Of making a fool of himself? Of the newspapers having a field day? None of that mattered, he said. “I can do it if you believe I can do it.”
What do you say to that? Truth and consequences. No fool he. His performance had been that of a complete amateur, but he wanted the part so badly; his desire was so naked that he had defected from Hollywood. He had exposed himself, he was a person, he wanted the recognition we all want (see Gypsy). It was painful to deny him. But then I remembered the triangle in the symphony orchestra. And the opera-singer aunt. And that he was from Pasadena. And what the theatre was about.
“I'm sorry, Bob,” I said. “I don't believe you can do it.”
“That's that,” he said politely, without a trace of resentment, of any feeling at all. We shook hands, he quit that day, and I never saw him again.
I had saved the show his two weeks' salary. When I learned how much, I was in shock: $35,000 a week. In 1986, they were going to pay Robert Stack $35,000 a week! I had saved the show $70,000.
Except that I hadn't. Allan Carr insisted on paying Robert Stack in full. After all, he was from Pasadena.
The absence or presence of movie stars in musicals can be an unexpected trap for an unwary director. The reason for the presence of the movie star is hardly a mystery. No one asks why Antonio Banderas was cast in a revival of Nine. As expected, the box-office advance was good. Unexpected were the rave reviews and the wildly enthusiastic audience, both sending the box office skyward. Banderas was completely at home on the stage; his charm was enormous; he was the matinee idol of the twenty-first century; and the company—of women—adored him. If 81/2, on which Nine was based, was about a man of genius, and for all that Banderas was, that he was not, did it matter? How faithful was the musical to the film, anyway?
The real questions were: What was the purpose of the production? Why was Nine revived? Did the director want more than gaudy success? Did he have higher aspirations? Did the authors?
In this theatre, why ask? The show was a success.
The Boy from Oz would not have been the stunning success it was without another movie star, Hugh Jackman. He gave the best performance of any male musical performer in decades as the gay Australian songwriter/singer Peter Allen. (He gave an equivalent performance as the poster-boy American farmhand Curly in Oklahoma! in London.) The New York audience went mad for him, as did the box office. Paradoxically, if it hadn't, the producer might have replaced the director, who didn't have the musical in his bones and delivered a very uncertain production which succeeded only because of Hugh Jackman.
His importance to The Boy from Oz unfortunately cannot be overestimated, for a better director might have made it easier even for a star who was obviously enjoying what he did; might even have opened new doors for him, talented as he was, made the work more challenging and exciting, and, best of all, given him a musical play worthy of him rather than a starring vehicle. There is a legitimate need for stars, for reasons poetic and practical, but that need underestimates the importance of the director. There are three, perhaps four, directors who know how to make a musical musical theatre or how to bring out the artist in a star. An illustration is the tale of Patti LuPone and Gypsy and the crunching sound of a hat being eaten …
THREE
Reviving the Revival
ONCE UPON A TIME, it was said that a certain Playwright swore hell could freeze over before he would allow a certain Star to play the legendary leading role in his legendary musical on a New York stage. Then, lo and behold! Not only did the Star play the role at New York City Center and hell not freeze over, but she was directed by the very same Playwright, in a production that itself was destined to become legendary. This is called Irony, one of the few certainties of life.
In the summer of 2006, Patti LuPone played Rose in a concert version of Gypsy at the Ravinia Festival outside Chicago. I was unaware of this until I read the New York Times review, in which the critic had reservations about her performance. Every report I heard after that was second- or third-hand. Word came—from where?—that she had a stunning success. More word—from where?—that Margaret Styne, Jule's lovely and perceptive widow, wanted her to come into New York and play Rose; that Stephen Sondheim said her performance had to be seen; that Stephen Sondheim hadn't seen her—therefore, did he really say she had to be seen,
and who said he did?
Then sharp word—from whom?—that I was the obstacle to LuPone playing Rose in New York. Titillating, but nobody even asked my permission. Also word—from whom?—that it was because she had walked out of a starring role in my play Jolson Sings Again, preventing it from coming to Broadway and angering me so much, I swore no LuPone Rose for a New York stage—ever. While it is true she walked out of an Off-Broadway production of Jolson—which has never been seen in New York—and also true I was angry at the time, that was many years ago, and I am not an injustice collector. Furthermore, so much of far more importance has happened in my life since then that the incident is as blurred in my memory as my first sexual experience. The metaphor is not accidental; it's a reflection of the importance I place on sex in life. It's in this Gypsy—which isn't accidental, either.
Then I was sent YouTube clips of Patti LuPone singing Rose's three big songs at that Ravinia Festival. That was the first time I heard of YouTube, a new fact of life not, I was told, to be taken casually. I assumed the anonymous sender was a demented LuPone fan, furious with me as The Obstacle—until the accompanying message popped up:
“Torture yourself for just two minutes and look at these.”
I looked. I saw his (or her) point. She was not a Rose to remember; still, it could not be denied that she could sing the hell out of Rose, not with a Merman trumpet but with a voice as rich, more nuanced, and—for me—potentially more effective dramatically. (I wonder how Merman, with her limited acting ability and musical-comedy face, would be received in Gypsy today.)
At that timely point, Scott Rudin called. LuPone had called him because she knew he and I were friends. Scott, who likes playing theatre matchmaker, delayed returning her call until I answered a question. Would I direct her in Gypsy?
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