[Life=Cabaret]

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/123331.html

I better get to New York quick. Christmas break is suddenly looking like a great time to make my NY College trips.

PS This is in the general forum because it concerns Patti LuPone as well as Gypsy...right?

[mastachen]

This was expected. Patti's contract ends in March and a lot of people, including me, were expecting it wouldn't go on after that.

[Life=Cabaret]

Yeah...I actually knew she had a contract and that after that she was going to do a concert tour, but still. I wanted to see this really bad. I hope I can make it to New York...

[dolbinau]

I hope you can make it too, so lucky to live in US!

[qpidsangel]

omg so mad.

not that I wasn't expecting it, but still.

[Dots Parasole]

As wonderful as Lupone is in this show (and she is just that wonderful) this revival is all about Benanti as far as I am concerned. Finally a Louise with a soul!!! She is wonderful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA8gKVdyYKI

[Salome]

Benanti sucked in comparison to Cynthia Gibb,Natalie Wood and especially Crista Moore.

[Dots Parasole]

[Salome]

excuse me..i'm wrong?? what a [mod ediit - no swearing please] conceited blanket statement.

i saw benantni in three shows .she is all surface or "acting school" techniwue. can't stand the hack.she is not her father.

If you must poujnt fingers fine..you are wrong.I
d say she was bland to her own face.

as for tonys..crap like spring awakening,fossee and many under par perfromers won tonys. thats not a good argument.

[Monsieur D'Arque]

With Patti LuPone Gypsy closing, maybe there's a chance we can finally get Nathan Lane Gypsy.


Just kidding. But how great would that be?

[actor]

I'm going to New York in January. Debating whether or not I should catch this before it closes. Anyone got any other suggestions of what I should see?

[Salome]

All My Sons, Blithe Spirit, or Man for All Seasons.

[Dots Parasole]

[Salome]

wow..you really know nothing at all.

[Dots Parasole]

[Dots Parasole]

Salome? Do ALL these people also know nothing?

The AP:

Then there is Rose's prickly dealings with her daughter, Louise, the ugly duckling who would grow up to become the swanlike Gypsy. Laura Benanti displays a touching vulnerability - not to mention a lovely voice - as the insecure daughter, a girl always in the shadow of her mother's favorite, June. And in their eventual confrontation, Benanti rises to the challenge of a faceoff with LuPone.

amNY:

Joining Lupone is Laura Benanti, who is probably giving the most dramatically and vocally powerful performance of Louise ever seen.

Variety:

Benanti is heartbreaking singing "I wonder how old I am" in "Little Lamb." Laurents' staging at times could be more fluid, notably as demure Louise transitions from her first, nervous burlesque appearance to sexy sophistication when she becomes celebrated stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. But Benanti emerges, butterfly-like, from her cocoon with grace and glamour, casting off her gawky early appearance -- in baggy tomboyish outfits and unflattering braids -- to take full command as she claims ownership of her life and shoves her mother aside.

Benanti is enormously moving as she absorbs one hurt after another through the show, pulled along like a rag doll in her mother's wake, initially second-string to her sister and then reluctantly shanghaied into headlining. When she emerges like a butterfly -- nervously at first, then with spiraling confidence -- from her baggy, unflattering clothes into the winking sophistication and toned, willowy body of the striptease artiste, the audience is celebrating her bittersweet independence along with her.

The New York Times:

I have never been more conscious of the ambivalence between June and her sister, Louise, the hang-dog tomboy who grows up to be Gypsy Rose Lee. Laura Benanti, late of “The Wedding Singer,” is delicious in the title role. (The appealingly watchful-faced Emma Rowley plays her younger self.) Ms. Benanti invests even her early scenes with a tincture of latent ambition that makes her apotheosis as burlesque queen seem inevitable.

And Ms. Benanti, in the performance of her career, traces Louise’s path to becoming her mother’s daughter out of necessity. The transformation of the waifish Louise into the vulpine Gypsy Rose Lee is completely convincing. And you’re acutely aware of what’s lost and gained in the metamorphoses.

USA Today:

Laura Benanti faces, and embraces, a bigger challenge charting the evolution of June's gawky sister, Louise, into Gypsy Rose Lee. Singing the exquisite Little Lamb in the first act, Benanti, who has one of the most beautiful voices in musical theater, makes that instrument sound fragile and tentative, verging on tears at one point.

Later, with Laurents' obvious encouragement, Benanti poses a dramatic counterweight to the formidable Rose. When Louise/Gypsy finally confronts her mother, Benanti screams out, as if to remind us whom the title of this show refers to.

Theatermania.com:

Laurents, who knows what he wants from a property that debuted 49 years ago this spring, has surrounded his star with a cast encouraged to be equally outstanding, starting with Benanti as the untalented girl who becomes legendary, self-kidding ecdysiast Gypsy Rose Lee. Hers is the character who transforms the most, and the initially cowering and then-confident Benanti wrings every nuance from the change. For many who expect LuPone's portrayal to be no less stunning than it is, Benanti's work will be the production's true revelation. Plus, she's a humdinger in the craftily zippered gowns that wily costumer Martin Pakledinaz has run up for the burlesque-house runways.

CurtainUp:

While LuPone is the box office name in this Gypsy, this is a win-win-win cast. As LuPone meets the tough challenge of showing the vulnerable loving side of the monstrously ambitious and misguided Rose, so Benanti manages to reconcile the pigailed, awkwardly untalented Louise we see for most of the show with the cool woman who has turned a step down the lowest rung of the show business ladder into her own kind of super stardom. It's the way Benanti taps into Louise's needy devotion to her mother and shows her to be not just a good listener but an emotionally engaged one (especially during the Tulsa dance number by Tony Yazbeck and the three strippers' demonstration of the fine points of strip tease) that makes the Louise-to-Miss Gypsy Rose Lee transformation and the mother-daughter rapprochement completely convincing.

It's the way Benanti's delighted interaction with the three strippers that also gives those tough gals' "You've Gotta Get a Gimmick" newly poignant as well as the usually funny resonance. Lenora Nemetz who plays one of those strippers, Mazeppa, as well as the crotchety, crusty Miss Cratchett is the only cast replacement and she is more than up to both parts.

John Simon:

But then how deftly LuPone makes Rose exude vulgarity without jeopardizing our basic sympathy; how touchingly Gaines underplays his leading-man dazzle for the most likable Herbie ever; how compellingly Benanti handles shy duckling Louise's transfiguration into Gypsy's preening swan.

NY Post:

Benanti is terrific, handling that transformation with more skill than any Louise I've seen, and standing toe-to-toe with LuPone in one of drama's most effective shouting matches. She also does the tease-strip bit very much like the real Gypsy Rose Lee, who I once saw heading an all-star variety show at the London Palladium.

Time Out:

it has a superb supporting cast, led by the impeccable Laura Benanti as Louise, the tomboy turned sexpot.

Daily News:

Achingly awkward as the no-talent tomboy Louise, the luminous Laura Benanti believably sheds inhibitions and clothes to bloom into the poised peeler Gypsy Rose Lee.

NY 1:

Laura Benanti is stunning!

and finally New York Magazine:

Pale and pigtailed, Laura Benanti spends much of the new revival of Gypsy looking about as wallflower-y as a wallflower gets. As Louise, the less stageworthy daughter of the overbearing Momma Rose, she wears a bashful smile even when she demeans herself: “I don’t have any talent,” she says. Benanti’s ability to navigate the tomboy’s transformation into the stage-prowling stripper Gypsy Rose Lee is plenty impressive; her ability to do so while breezing through a dozen other emotional shadings—a plain girl’s heartsickness, the petulance of a star—makes it astonishing. If she isn’t the definitive Louise, I’d be awfully eager to see who is. So eager, in fact, I might even be willing to sit through Gypsy again.

[Salome]

*YAWN*

I dont have to agree. I saw her.

[Dots Parasole]

[qpidsangel]

I haven't got to see Benati, but I like the recording

[Salome]

You are being childish believing that everyone \must agree with your assesment of some flash in the pan. I thought she was okay in Gypsy..and that she was dreadful in Nine and ITW.

[Dots Parasole]

[Joshua]

[Salome]

[Dots Parasole]

[Salome]

elaine paige is dreadful. she is only famous because she f*cked tim rice. she is screechy,she cant act and she is ugly.

[Dots Parasole]

[Set_Buildin_Dad]

Moved to the Gypsy forum. Please post show specific topics in the appropriate forums.

[JayJayM12]

[Brock07]

I don't really understand why this had to be moved...any other time a show closed or really big news hit for it it was posted here and allowed to remain...

[dolbinau]

An effort is being made to move topics now:

http://musicals.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=71562

[Brock07]

Gotcha...missed that one.

[What Is This Feeling?]

Ugh. I know getting a Mama rose replacement would be stupid, but this just means I only have until March 1st to see it. I really want to too. I just feel I can't miss this. The Drama Club is supposed to take a trip in May, to see something in NY! It will be too late now. Unless, I persuade our president to consider the trip sooner. As for Laura Benati, I can't judge because obviously I haven't seen any of her performances. Dawn, what do you dislike about her? Lol, I didn't get what you were saying.

[kozafluitmusique]

they better film this for great performances.

or else.

[dolbinau]

I don't see it happening but I will be very happy if they do .

[ilovebway]

so. mad.

This must be recorded.

[Brock07]

It seemed like such an obvious choice to film...maybe they're just waiting for the announcment because they are afraid ticket sales will dip even further than they already have if people knew that they could just watch it on TV. I hope....and pray.

[Dots Parasole]

[Joseebus]

I'll be seeing the show January 31st! My first trip to NYC. I couldn't miss the opportunity to see my favorite actress of the stage on Broadway in my absolute favorite musical of all time for the world and now I'm finally making it a reality.

Let's just hope her fabulous work ethic holds out and she doesn't randomly cancel the one show I'm seeing her in.

[Dots Parasole]

[dolbinau]

I have no idea how this show is going to last 3 months. Lowest attendance on Broadway this week, very very low last week. Losing profit weeks before that (I think). Hopefully it'll pick up.

[Joseebus]

[GungaDin]

This should go into that thread about Broadway shows being videotaped and for some specious reasons, being made availalbe to the public. (It used to be here I think..and then got moved...and now I can't find it.)

Anyway, just for those who think the unauthorized "filming" of Broadway shows wouldbe the cat's pyjamas, here's some rare performance footage of ANgela Lansbury in MAME, and... as you can see, it's TERRIBLE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPTyjXdUA3E&feature=related

So I don't know why people here keep thinking that they're entitled to see archival footage such as this for free. Most of it is REALLY UNWATCHABLE!!

[Jman383]