DCMDVA-ARTS - Toby's Dinner Theatre Show Review
The Prince George's Post-- Thursday November 1, 1984
"Gypsy" Recalls '20s, '30s Theatre
By Sharon Kennedy
The viewpoint of "Gypsy," ... is that of an adult Gypsy Rose Lee who recaptures her colorful childhood as Baby Louise during the height of vaudeville and burlesque.
As in another play, "I Remember Mama," no one can for~et Louise's Mama Rose (Jean Anne Kain), an indomitable force. When I told my mother how Mama Rose pushed her daughters, Baby Louise (Elisa Wain) and Baby June (Jodi Rehmertl, both child performers, into earning the family's
income, my mother said, "Why didn't I think of that?" So if you want to enjoy your carefree child and teen years, take your sister, even your brother, but not your mother to see "Gypsy."
On the other hand, if your mother promises to make you a star like Mama Rose did for Louise and June, perhaps you should reconsider.
At the family's frame house in Seattle, Mama Rose is tired of life after three husbands and the confinement
of her father's home. Unwilling
to live by her father's standards
to stay home, knit sweaters and play bingo like a gypsy, Mama Rose wants to run around the country
seeking fame and fortune through Baby June's show.
To pay for the trip to Los Angeles, Mama Rose steals her father's solid gold plaque that he received for work WIth the railroad company. En route with Baby June and Baby Louise, Mama Rose kidnaps
innocent little boys for her traveling show featuring Baby June.
Because Baby June and Baby Louise look up to Mama and her way of doing things, these incidents
are never reported to the authorities. Mama Rose always comes out smelling like a rose. Certainly Kain's rendition of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" is apropos. It makes believers of us all.
Baby June and Louise grow like weeds and the grown-up members of the company take over, with Betsy True as Louise and Alice Vienneau as June for those terrible subteen and teen years. As a grown-up, Gypsy Rose Lee recollects that Mama Rose always favored her baby sister, June. To Mama Rose, Louise was like the family's ugly duckling. During the family's vaudeville shows, Louise always played one of the boys and was shoved to the background. June got all the praise.
Here, special effects and songs stand out. To "Let Me Entertain You," a strobe light augments the illusion of a large marching band progressing in rhythmic steps across the stage. The usual strobe light used for night club bands is a distraction, even a visual headache, never artistic. So I applaud
the director and lighting designer Donald Roache Jr. for their inventive and creative use of
a strobe light.
Another scene builds upon the emotional struggle of rejection, dejection,
inferiority, even neglect, that Louise feels when dealing with Mama Rose. True is skilled at capturing
the drooping posture and facial expression to show these feelings. However, Louise wants, even aches, to feel a part of her stage family so much that she feels no jealousy toward her sister June.
To mitigate the feelings of re~ection
caused by Mama Rose's bhndness
to the feelings of others, Louise, June and Herbie (Pat Anthony),
the show's manager, share a sensitivity that bonds their stage family. When the family remembers Louise's birthdav. the mixed feelings and joy and rejection
mingle in the ensuing song, "Little Lamb." True's rendition sung to a little lamb is especially heartrending.
Through thick and thin, Mama Rose manages up to this point 10 keep her stage family intact. She gets clean away with personality quirks that may strike you as mental
abuse to her children and even a criminal offense for kidnapping. But Mama Rose's undoing is the declining demand for vaudeville acts. She is blind to June's feelings. It is Louise who finds out that June always hated the show.
June's elopement, a short-lived tragedy, is the rivotal point to Louise's eventua success as a burlesque star. As if by fate Louise is ready to be thrust in the midsl of burlesque. Burlesque and vaudeville reached a peak during the 19208 and '308. The blend of Ihe two evolved into the revue which reached its classic form with the Ziegfeld Follies.
All cast in lead roles ably show developing and shifting character personalities. Kain aptly portrays the indomitable career stage mother. True has agility to roll with the punches, from a drooping posture showing her feelings of neglect to a refined strut as Ihe famed burlesque queen, Gypsy Rose Lee. Phyllis Goldblatt of Mazeppa lends colorful support to True's burlesque stage."Gypsy," features Laurel resident Betsy True.