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COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
By the end of "Gypsy"(now in revival at the Shubert), the show's heroine, Louise (Tammy Blanchard), has triumphed over the odds that appeared to be stacked against her--lack of money, lack of encouragement, and the blind fidelity of her mother, Rose, to her other, seemingly more talented daughter, June (Kate Reinders). Under the stage name Gypsy Rose Lee, Louise has metamorphosed from a sweet, timid little girl into the most popular draw in burlesque. She has invented and perfected the strip-as-tease--turning it into an early form of performance art--and in doing so she has catapulted herself beyond the fading glitz of vaudeville, her mother's world, and beyond her mother as well. At the theatre where Gypsy Rose Lee performs, a sign backstage announces that Rose (Bernadette Peters) is not welcome on the premises. But Rose pays no attention to the sign. She's incapable of hearing "no." Nor does she take kindly to being chastised for her arrogance by Louise's maid, who knows nothing of the hell that Rose has endured to hold on to the greatest role of all: mother. Still, to rule the roost you need a chick, and Louise refuses to be one. She's a woman of quality now: she speaks French, she has a bathtub in her dressing room, and she hobnobs with the intellectuals who sit through her shows with their raincoats folded in their laps. Rose...
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