The dreaded Family Weekend is coming up. You know, when your mother comes to visit you, scolds you about your major and insists that you wash your dirty laundry. But when it reaches the brink of becoming unbearable, just think to yourself — well, at least she never pressured me to become a stripper. And, if by some chance she did, perhaps you’ll find Gypsy at Live Arts to be a very relatable experience.
Gypsy is an old-fashioned Sondheim musical that — although based on the true story of one of history’s most celebrated strippers, Gypsy Rose Lee — mostly focuses on the obsession of Gypsy’s domineering mother, “Momma Rose,” who hopes to fulfill her own sordid dreams by pushing her daughters into the limelight. Her youngest daughter, June, is the favorite — dressed in little Shirley Temple outfits and presented as the star — while shy Louise, the future “Gypsy,” is assumed to be talentless and forced into less-assuming parts (such as a cow).
Momma Rose bands together with Herbie, an agent who happens to have a huge crush on her, and drags her daughters all across the country. Eventually June gets fed up and elopes with one of her fellow actors, leaving Louise to fill in the traveling show’s star role. One day, the troupe accidentally gets booked into a burlesque house, and this is when the show really starts to get interesting.
All the actors give top-notch performances, molding quite naturally into both the shabby vaudeville glamour of the set and costumes. Robin Marie Hyer was endearing and vivacious as the teenage/adult Louise, with a beautiful and clear singing voice — although her transformation from the overlooked girl in pigtails and overalls with the pathetic “aww-shucks-I-haven’t-got-any-talent” attitude to a glamorous, seductive burlesque queen seems just a bit too sudden.
Camden Luck and Georgia Castleman, the two little actresses that played June and Louise as children, also do a wonderful job, appearing throughout the play. This was an interesting theatrical device, because whenever Momma Rose speaks to her adult daughters, she often sees them in their childhood form — allowing the children to retake the stage during these sequences.
But it was Lydia Underwood Horan who really stole the stage, portraying a Momma Rose as multi-faceted as those sequined stripper costumes, whether it was shouting at directors, obstinately eating dog food from a can or having a truly spectacular nervous breakdown conveyed in song.
If you’re one of those impatient people who, like me, fast-forward through Disney movies to the musical numbers, there are a couple of very creative ones to look forward to in Gypsy. The most entertaining number in the play was probably “You’ve Gotta Get a Gimmick,” in which the aging strippers of the burlesque house give Louise practical advice about how to be a stripper. Each was seductively dressed as a gladiator, a peacock and the Statue of Liberty, respectively. Now I know what I want to be for Halloween.
