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| Author | Topic: Arthur Laurents/Gypsy Question |
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Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 7/27/2007 at 1:34:23 PM ET
Does anyone know why Arthur Laurents didn't direct the 2003 revival? He obviously has a very strong proprietary interest in the show and has directed all the other New York revivals. He goes around excoriating Mendes's direction. So why didn't he just direct Bernadette's production himself and avoid giving himself such occasion for complaint?
| jmslsu01
Registered User
Registered:
6/9/2003
From:
northern VA | posted: 7/27/2007 at 2:55:55 PM ET
quote:
Does anyone know why Arthur Laurents didn't direct the 2003 revival? He obviously has a very strong proprietary interest in the show and has directed all the other New York revivals. He goes around excoriating Mendes's direction. So why didn't he just direct Bernadette's production himself and avoid giving himself such occasion for complaint?
Don't know, but this article on Patti LuPone is pretty interesting (Laurents is extensively quoted).
New York Times (may require registration-I do not recommend anyone copying and pasting to the board)
Jenn
| Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 7/27/2007 at 3:52:46 PM ET
Interesting to read that Ms LuPone feels her "gifts" are "better understood" in London ... I take it she means London, Texas. 
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 7/27/2007 at 4:02:03 PM ET
HaHA!
Very good one. 
|  GYPSY1527
Registered User
Registered:
2/20/2004
From:
New Jersey
Fav. BP Song: With So Little to be Sure of
Fav. BP Show: Gypsy
Fav. BP Character: Dot
Fav. BP CD: Sondheim Ect.
| posted: 7/27/2007 at 6:41:00 PM ET
I have a feeling he might not have liked Bernadette even though he originally suggested the role of Rose to be played by her aftering her Sondheim Carnegie Hall concert. I read this story on broadwayworld.com and it seems to clear a few things up.
Arthur infamously turned on Sam Mendes during previews for the Bernadette Peters revival, when it became clear what a debacle that production was.
Nevertheless, Sam still wanted to please Arthur and regain his approval, despite the AWFUL things Arthur was saying about Sam all over town.
Sam called Arthur one night after a performance to tell him how well it was going and how much better Bernadette was getting each night. But nothing could ever change Arthur's mind once he decided that someone was "an untalented fraud."
Finally, near defeat, Sam said, "Well, the strippers went over well." "oh, please, Sam" Arthur said, before hanging up. "ANYONE can make that number work. You could cast Saddam Hussein and his two sons as those three strippers and they STILL would bring down the house. Good NIGHT
| jmslsu01
Registered User
Registered:
6/9/2003
From:
northern VA | posted: 7/27/2007 at 7:09:45 PM ET
In The Art of the American Musical, he said that Bernadette was "brilliant, original, totally unlike all the others." He has made no secret of his displeasure with Mendes's conception of the show (and does so in the next sentence after that quote), but not with her performance.
In that same interview, he highly praises Tammy Blanchard ("ravishing and electrifying") and John Dossett ("excellent in his own right") as well.
Jenn
| BroadwayBabyGal
Registered User
Registered:
5/8/2003 | posted: 7/27/2007 at 7:15:37 PM ET
I thought Laurents hated LuPone? Also, even though I'm biased, I think the 2003 revival was absolutely brilliant.
Jessica
| jmslsu01
Registered User
Registered:
6/9/2003
From:
northern VA | posted: 7/27/2007 at 7:18:43 PM ET
Jessica, the article explains the situation. I recommend reading it-very interesting.
Jenn
| BroadwayBabyGal
Registered User
Registered:
5/8/2003 | posted: 7/27/2007 at 7:23:22 PM ET
Ah, I see now.
Jessica
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 7/27/2007 at 7:45:32 PM ET
Wouldn't you like to be able to hear whatever it was that LuPone was forced to tell Laurents, during that 3 hour lunch, in order to get the part? He must have emerged from the restaurant blinded by the snow job and unable to sit down for a week from the ass-kissing. But you know he ate it up good!
| Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 7/30/2007 at 2:00:35 PM ET
I know I can't really judge things properly since I didn't get to NY to see the Bernadette/Mendes production of Gypsy, but I have seen it in disc form and I thought it pretty amazing. I loved the way BP portrayed Rose and thought she really got under that woman's skin and made us understand exactly what made her tick. Mendes is a super director and I loved what he did with the show. Do you think maybe it was the minimalist aspects of the production that Laurents didn't like? Or was his dislike of the production a wee bitty more "personal". Maybe he felt upstaged by the appointment of the blue-eyed boy of London theatre, Sam Mendes, who, let's face it, is a rather brilliant "untalented fraud".
I keep thinking of that great "punch-up" scene in Valley Of The Dolls with Susan Hayward as the older, fading star and Patty Duke as the younger, talented upstart. Does Laurents wear a wig? 
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
| Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 8/9/2007 at 1:18:15 PM ET
I found this rather interesting British newspaper review of Mendes' Gypsy and Bernadette's "King Lear" turn ......
Gypsy, arguably the greatest American musical, has never had a Broadway production without one of its original creators in charge. Revivals in 1974 (with Angela Lansbury) and 1989 (with Tyne Daly) were directed by Arthur Laurents, who wrote the original book to go with the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim score. But at the helm of the current revival here is Sam Mendes, fresh from a string of successes in film and on stage (his travelling Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night have been nominated for several awards by the Drama Desk, a New York critics' group).
In the part of Mama Rose, which Mendes has called "the King Lear of musical theatre", is Bernadette Peters. The petite actress with the Betty Boop squeak has struck many as ill-suited to the role of the maniacal stage mother using her children to fulfill her thwarted ambitions. The irony is that Mendes's production is lacklustre, but Peters's battle with the part is mesmerizing.
Early on, trying to act the juggernaut, Peters rushes some lines into garble, and her singing voice plummets to uncomfortably low registers. Though she works hard to give the impression of indomitability, it seems out of her grasp. Then, late in act one, as she reads a letter from her daughter June, who has eloped, Rose's face freezes into a Medusa-like mask of determination.
Seizing on her second daughter, Louise, Rose promises to make her a star. As she belts out, "We can do it/ Momma is gonna see to it", a chill creeps up one's spine.
Even then, the sunny second-act trio, Together, Wherever We Go, serves as a reminder that Peters's natural gift is musical comedy. Still, she ploughs ahead, a bantam wrestling with a leviathan role, to the crucial point when Rose volunteers Louise as a stand-in for a stripper in a sleazy burlesque house. That moment carries all the shock it should, and actress and role seem united at last.
Throughout Mendes's production, Rose is the centre of attention: even during the children's performances, he keeps her visible backstage. And she does have a loving side, both for her children and for John Dossett's handsome, devoted Herbie.
The rest of the cast is fine, too, although Tammy Blanchard, a charming Louise, conveys little sense of having fun when she strips, as the real Gypsy Rose Lee surely did.
Mendes offers no new insights, and sometimes the direction is inept. Gypsy is often regarded as an indestructible musical; if that is true, Mendes's production is an unnecessary stress test
Monday May 5, 2003
The Guardian
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
| Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
70.243.210.x | posted: 8/13/2007 at 7:10:27 PM ET
In an new article Arthur Laurent said "I thought Sam did a terrible disservice to Bernadette and the play" he also goes on to say something along the lines of that Mendes "destroyed" Gypsy.
Does this bother anyone other than me? Granted, he's not taking aim at Bernadette, but he won't stop saying all these terrible things about the show. Her show. I mean you look at the posters and they said "BERNADETTE PETERS IN GYPSY". While the cast had many respectable actors, this was essentially Bernadette's show. And I don't mean that in a diva like way. I think that we can all agree that the major attraction of Gypsy is to see Mama Rose. So I guess I still feel like he's insulting Bernadette. I really wish he would just stop. The show is over and done with. He sent LuPone in there...fine...whatever.
I do wish that Bernadette or Mendes would stand up to Laurent. But as we know Bernadette (unlike Laurent) would never go bashing someone to the press.
| Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 8/13/2007 at 7:34:51 PM ET
Fascinating to read that Laurents' favourite "Roses" were Tyne Daly and Angela Lansbury , hmm, I wonder who directed those two particular interpretations? 
Surely great theatrical works need re-working from time to time? That's what keeps them fresh and alive. If William Shakespeare's plays had always been presented and performed in the same way would we still be paying money to see them staged five centuries after they were written? Not to put Arthur Laurents on a par with Shakespeare but Mendes did say he regards "Rose" as "the King lear of musical thatre".
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 8/13/2007 at 7:48:59 PM ET
Yeah, it's not really a brand new article. It's from Michael Riedel's July 27 article in the New York Post which inspired me to start this thread. I didn't link to that article or specifically mention it at the time because it's been my vow not to publicize Riedel ever again. Why that interview is being picked up on now--three weeks later and after the City Center Gypsy has closed--I have no idea. Must be a 'veery' slow news day.
Nope, you're not the only one bothered by it. When I read Laurents's comments I muttered to myself "crazyass old freak." Of course he's insulting her. There's no possible other interpretation. Even if he were right he shouldn't go around saying it, but he's wrong any way. He's just a perfect little fascistic control freak.
| Anonymous
Anonymous Poster
From Internet Network:
70.243.210.x | posted: 8/13/2007 at 7:53:25 PM ET
Amen Karen!
Kate
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