‘GYPSY’: Joy Woods & Audra McDonald. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

GYPSY
Book by Arthur Laurents
Music by Jule Styne
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Suggested by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee
Music supervision, music direction &
additional arrangements by Andy Einhorn
Choreography by Camille A. Brown
Directed by George C. Wolfe
Majestic Theatre
245 W. 45^th St.
https://gypsybway.com
 

By Scott Harrah

It’s six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald’s turn to play the iconic Mama Rose—and she is one of the best yet. 

There’s a reason why Gypsy has been revived five times in the past 30 years: it remains one of the best-written, most seamless American musicals of all time, partially because it’s based on a true story, but primarily due to its unforgettable songbook.  Originally portrayed by Ethel Merman in 1959, the role of Rose is the lifeblood of this classic, and everyone from Angela Lansbury to Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone has played the part on Broadway—and Imelda Staunton in London— since then. Now, Audra McDonald takes on the iconic Seattle stage mother Rose with everything she’s got and gives the character an entirely new “spin.”

A reinvention of Mama Rose

While many actresses played Rose as an edgy, high-spirited belter, Ms. McDonald gives the woman a sense of elegance and inner dignity, singing the classic songs with her famous coloratura voice and, in a sense, reinvents them for a new generation. Rose is as demanding a role in musical theater as Lady Macbeth and Blanche DuBois are in the pantheon of drama, and Ms. McDonald’s interpretation is one of the best yet. The only other outside-of-the-box portrayal of Rose this reviewer has seen was by Imelda Staunton at the Savoy Theatre in London back in 2015.

Ms. Staunton, a petite British acting legend, exploded on the West End with an entirely original rendition of Rose. “You see her building layer after layer with every scene and song,” wrote the late David Nounou in his 2015 StageZine review. “She is raw and vulnerable; she is coiled like a cobra ready to strike, and all wrapped up in a veil of desperation to succeed.”

Fragile & vulnerable

However, while Ms. Staunton’s Rose was manic—as was Patti LuPone’s in the 2008 Broadway revival—Ms. McDonald is more subtle but equally powerful. Hers is a Rose that gains gradual momentum, bossy in the beginning, but with a touch of class. Ms. McDonald paces Rose with razor-sharp intensity, eventually evolving into an out-of-control harridan who is not exactly likeable.  We see her fragility and vulnerability. When Ms. McDonald sings “Some People” in act one, we know immediately she’s not giving us the brassy Rose of yesteryear. She is softer, gentler and more operatic in her vocal delivery, and it works beautifully. She is also sublime indeed when singing classic songs like the heartbreaking 11^th hour finale “Rose’s Turn,” and even gives a fresh take on “Have an Eggroll, Mr. Goldstone.” She’s in fine voice when singing such classics as “Together Wherever We Go” and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”

Big, bold & splashy

This production is far more lavish than the stripped-down 2008 iteration with Patti LuPone. That revival featured an on-stage orchestra but had few sets and a downsized cast. This Gypsy is truer to the show’s epic proportions of the past. It is a spectacular production, with a cast of 30, a full orchestra, great sets by Santo Loquasto, outstanding Depression-era costumes by Toni-Leslie James and marvelous lighting by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer. This is Gypsy the way it was meant to be: big, bold, splashy and spectacular.

Gypsy is “suggested” by “The Memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee,” the story of the burlesque icon’s childhood life in a traveling vaudeville act, helmed by a domineering mother. Joy Woods is entertaining indeed in role of Louise, the tomboyish child who spends most of act one in the background while her prettier sister Dainty June (Jordan Tyson) headlines the show-within-a-show. It’s not until the second act when June strikes out on her own that Louise truly blossoms as she’s forced by her mother to become the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.

Standout supporting cast

Some of the greatest performances are given by such supporting characters as Herbie (Danny Burstein), Rose’s boyfriend/manager.  Tony Award winner Mr. Burstein is always amazing, but he is one of the best Herbies this reviewer has ever seen. He’s sensitive, determined and is consistently top-notch in both his acting and singing. We really feel for the guy as he clings to the hope that Rose will one day marry him.

Joy Woods as Louise is another standout. She starts out shy and unassuming, but her transformation in the second act as Gypsy Rose Lee is remarkable, even if it seems a bit rushed and awkward. Watching Ms. Woods’ Louise go from a modest, awkward teen to the glamorous Gypsy Rose Lee is delightful, especially when she sings the showstopper “Let Me Entertain You.”

One of the show’s highlights is watching the trio of seasoned strippers in a Wichita burlesque grindhouse (Lesli Margherita as Tessie Tura, Lili Thomas as Mazeppa and Melinda Hull as Electra). The three burlesque queens show Gypsy how to take it all off in the razzle-dazzle number “You’ve Gotta Get a Gimmick.”

One of the greatest show-business stories ever told

However, there is nothing gimmicky about Gypsy. Despite its feel-good songs and breezy narrative, it’s essentially a tragedy as intricately crafted as anything by Shakespeare or the great American dramatists of the 20^th century. Director George C. Wolfe allows each cast member to shine, and Camille A. Brown’s choreography is energetic and effusive.

Gypsy peels back the emotional layers of a mother’s megalomania and strong drive to see her children succeed to expose the vulnerability beneath her iron-clad exterior. It’s a fable of sacrifice, the death of vaudeville in America, and the agony of broken dreams that still packs an emotional punch with new generations of audiences. That’s why more than six decades after it was first produced, Gypsy still holds up as one of the greatest show-business stories ever told.

Published January 9, 2025
Reviewed at press performance on January 8, 2025

‘GYPSY’: Audra McDonald. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘GYPSY’: Audra McDonald & Joy Woods. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘GYPSY’: (left to right) Danny Burstein, Joy Woods & Audra McDonald. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘GYPSY’: (left to right) Zachary Daniel Jones, Brendan Sheehan, Audra McDonald, Andrew Kober, Danny Burstein & Jordan Tyson. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘GYPSY’: Joy Woods. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘GYPSY’: (left to right) Mylinda Hull, Joy Woods, Lesli Margherita & Lili Thomas. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘GYPSY’: Zachary Daniel Jones, Tony d’Alelio, Jordan Tyson, Kevin Csolak & Brendan Sheehan. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘GYPSY’: Jade Smith. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

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‘OHIO STATE MURDERS’: Audra McDonald & Bryce Pinkham. Photo: Richard Termine.

OHIO STATE MURDERS
By Adrienne Kennedy
Directed by Kenny Leon
James Earl Jones Theatre
138 West 48^th Street
212-239-6200, https://ohiostatemurdersbroadway.com/

By Scott Harrah

Six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald brings Ohio State Murders—playwright Adrienne Kennedy’s 1992 one-act confessional play recalling a harrowing time in her college days at Ohio State University—to vivid life on Broadway. The show is a 75-minute monologue, with a few other characters added with minimal lines of dialogue popping in and out of Ms. Kennedy’s narrative, as if she’s reliving a nightmare—and indeed she is. Ms. McDonald keeps us spellbound with her consistently engaging performance in this haunting tale of a Black woman’s misfortune and heartbreak in the racially segregated, white world of a mid-20^th century Midwestern college town.

Ms. McDonald portrays Suzanne Alexander (based on playwright Adrienne Kennedy) in a book-filled library back at her alma mater, giving a lecture about her work and its “violent imagery,” with projections of African Americans being lynched and other disturbing scenes. She is telling the semi-autobiographical story of how the author, now 91, entered Ohio State University in 1949 as an undeclared freshman, hoping to major in English. Back then, Black students were not allowed to major in English without taking two prerequisite English courses as a trial to see if they could handle the curriculum. Later, they could apply to be accepted as an English major.

Suzanne took an English class and enjoyed reading Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. She was intrigued by the mysterious professor of the course, Robert Hampshire (Bryce Pinkham), a young British man who did not engage with his students and immediately came to each class, opened the book and started discussing the work. One day, after turning in a term paper about Hardy’s book, Suzanne receives a note from the professor, asking her to meet him in his office. He has little to say when they meet, other than asking her if she actually wrote the assigned essay about Hardy and if she used any reference materials. He is a true academic enigma, an intellectual who wears tweed suits and, as portrayed by Mr. Pinkham, is a taciturn guy and displays almost no emotion when he speaks.

Ohio State Murders is a story that one needs to follow closely while watching because the narrative isn’t always fully explained. We soon learn that Suzanne is pregnant. Suzanne is shunned by her family and forced to go live in New York with her understanding Aunt Louise (Lizan Mitchell).  She gives birth to twin girls and longs to return to Ohio to go back to her university. She becomes an elementary education major but yearns to be studying in the English department.

Instead of being a standard “whodunit”-style mystery, Ohio State Murders is mostly a collection of the character’s grim remembrances of a painful past filled with racism, broken dreams, gut-wrenching loss and misfortune.  Her memories are literally fleshed out by appearances of secondary characters, such as friend Iris Ann (Abigail Stephenson), boyfriend David Alexander (Mister Fitzgerald), and Lizan Mitchell portraying multiple roles such as landlady Mrs. Tyler and college administrative official/spinster Miss Dawson.

Ohio State Murders is a powerful yet flawed story. As directed by Kenny Leon, the narrative sometimes lacks dramatic tension and moves slow, but two aspects help the show transcend its shortcomings. First is Ms. Kennedy’s searing firsthand account of racism back in the days before conspiracy theorists and populist politicians muddied the waters of human rights. Her story will remind audiences of an era, just a few decades ago, when our nation was literally divided by race, before civil rights laws and legislation. The story also shows how, despite some progress, we have sadly made few real advances in modern-day America, with rampant racism, antisemitism and homophobia as everyday fodder for social media and 21^st century politics. Last but certainly not least is the incredible Audra McDonald. She brings this tale (last produced Off Broadway in 2007) to Broadway with verve, reverence for the material and the on-stage dynamics and electric stage presence for which she is known. For her many fans, it’s impossible to take one’s eyes off her as she reflects on Suzanne’s many years of pain and suffering. Ms. McDonald shines with conviction even when the material rambles and lacks focus. Audra McDonald, in her own way, brings a bit of justice and nuance to Adrienne Kennedy’s tragic past.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published December 8, 2022
Reviewed at December 7, 2022  press preview performance.

‘OHIO STATE MURDERS’: Audra McDonald & Abigail Stephenson. Photo: Richard Termine.

‘OHIO STATE MURDERS’: Audra McDonald, Lizan Mitchell & Mister Fitzgerald. Photo: Richard Termine.

‘OHIO STATE MURDERS’: Audra McDonald. Photo: Richard Termine.

‘OHIO STATE MURDERS’: Audra McDonald. Photo: Richard Termine.

The post ‘Ohio State Murders’: A haunting confessional appeared first on StageZine.

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE
Written by Terrence McNally
Directed by Arin Arbus
Through August 25, 2019
Broadhurst Theatre
235 West 44th Street
(212-239-6200), https://www.frankieandjohnnybroadway.com/

By David NouNou

Frankie and Johnny in the Clare de Lune first opened at Stage 2 of the Manhattan Theater Club in June 1987 with Kathy Bates and F. Murray Abraham, who was followed by Kenneth Welsh. As described, Frankie is a fat, frumpy waitress who is emotionally defined by her unattractiveness. She is a waitress in the diner where Johnny is a short-order cook who is in good physical condition. There was a revival in 2002 with Edie Falco and Stanley Tucci at the Belasco Theatre. Ms. Falco wasn’t fat or unattractive but had her share of hang-ups, and Stanley Tucci in that version was hot.

The current incarnation gives us a different slant of these two people; they are both still damaged souls and desperately seeking a connection. They are both fairly attractive but come with a lot of baggage. After six weeks of working together, Frankie and Johnny finally go out on a date and, from the onset of the play, we find them having explosive sex in her apartment.

Naturally for Johnny, (Michael Shannon), he feels he found his soul mate and they are meant for each other as in the song “Frankie and Johnny.” However, for Frankie (Audra McDonald) she is more cautious and feels once the deed is over, it is time for Johnny to leave. This is not going to happen. Johnny is persistent, and does everything to convince Frankie he is her man. Their differences are also their similarities. They’ve both made bad choices throughout their lives and have had consequences to pay for it. Johnny sees it as a last chance for love and redemption; Frankie is just afraid of commitment and the fear of being beaten up again. It is ultimately music that starts to bring these two together. On this particular night, Johnny calls up a radio station DJ to play the beautiful song they heard earlier that night, but the DJ instead plays the enthralling “Clare de Lune” by Claude Debussy

What makes the piece exciting is the casting. Michael Shannon is a revelation here for multiple reasons. If you ever saw him in films like The Shape of Water, Nocturnal Animals or Revolutionary Road, he does not come off as the genial “nice guy next door.” He is intense. Intense. So, Frankie has got to be thinking what the hell has she gotten herself into with this overzealous could-be psycho, who she will ultimately have to face again on Monday at the diner? The harder part of the two characters in this case is Johnny’s, not only does he have to seduce Frankie, he has to seduce the entire audience in rooting for him. In an odd perverse way, we would all like to have such a committed person in our life. His seductive manner is overpowering, but his intentions are always true and good. He brings humanity in the purest form to Johnny.

Ms. McDonald has to be constantly on her guard as whether Johnny is for real or another Saturday night crackpot. She puts barriers up, and he methodically brings them down. Matched together, Ms. McDonald’s Frankie could easily throw Johnny out of her apartment if she wanted to; she is that strong a woman. Also, what works against Ms. McDonald are the hideous costumes she has to wear, for they strip her of any femininity and vulnerability. Her Frankie could have used those two characteristics, and matched Mr. Shannon in charming and seducing the audience to her side of thinking. Instead, she just settles for the frumpiness.

This is one of Terrence McNally’s most charming and delicate plays and very accessible. However, in this case, the Broadhurst Theatre becomes a cavernous venue for such a delicate piece. The apartment in use is a studio in Hell’s Kitchen, but at the Broadhurst Theatre, it seems like a three-bedroom apartment, so a lot of the cramped, in-your-face, claustrophobic tensions are lost. Perhaps the show should have waited for the smaller venue, the Booth Theatre (which will be available soon), where the fireworks of these two talented and overwhelming leads would have ricocheted off the walls.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published June 5, 2019
Reviewed at June 4, 2019 press performance.

‘FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE’: Audra McDonald & Michael Shannon. Photo: Deen van Meer

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‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Brandon Victor Dixon & Audra McDonald. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

SHUFFLE ALONG
OR THE MAKING OF THE MUSICAL SENSATION OF 1921 AND ALL THAT FOLLOWED
Book by George C. Wolfe
Original Book by F. E. Miller & Aubrey Lyles
Music & lyrics by Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake
Choreography by Savion Glover
Directed by George C. Wolfe
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200), www.shufflealongbroadway.com

By David NouNou

The syncopated rhythm of Shuffle Along at the Music Box Theatre will blow you away in this musical within a musical. Act I is about putting together the first all-black musical: cast, producer, director, writers and musicians on Broadway in 1921. Act II is the aftermath and what became of the creators and the people that were involved in this almost forgotten sensation of the era. Both parts are valid and essential. Act I is entertainment of dizzying heights. Act II plods with the usual heavy-handed dialogue that only George C. Wolfe can churn out. What a blissful, deliriously enjoyable and heavenly evening could have been achieved had the director George C. Wolfe toned down the lugubriously preachy writings of writer George C. Wolfe

However, the evening’s real hero is Savion Glover. His choreography is currently unparalleled on Broadway. His syncopated formation of his dancers is perfection to the utmost degree. We sit there dazzled with every number. In large part due to Mr. Glover’s vision, this heavy-handed musical soars into the stratosphere.

It is an understatement to say that putting this magnificent cast together is a major achievement. Audra McDonald (as Lottie Gee, leading lady of the show) is now an American institution. Adjectives are mere words to what her talent offers. Brian Stokes Mitchell as F. E. Miller, part of the duo who conceived the show, reuniting for the first time with Ms. McDonald since 1998’s Ragtime, is a pleasure to watch and hear, but there is not enough of a character that focuses strictly on Mr. Mitchell’s formidable voice and talent. Billy Porter as Aubrey Lyles, the other part of the duo who conceived the show, gives his character the proper comedic and acidic touches but doesn’t come close in gravitas to his Lola from Kinky Boots.

The two best male parts are that of Eubie Blake, the pianist and composer and also Lottie’s lover, played enigmatically and charmingly by the wonderful Brandon Victor Dixon; and Noble Sissle, Eubie’s fellow composer, staunchly and admirably played by Joshua Henry.

Essentially the story revolves around the four gentlemen who were separate duos: F.E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles and Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake pooling their talents together and bringing the first black musical to Broadway. It shows all the pitfalls and travails they endured to bring this musical to life. However, the success, fame and money that Shuffle Along acquired also brought them their demise because, all having the best intentions to re-team, ultimately brought them their separation and alienation from each other.

The ingredients for the perfect musical are all here; unfortunately, the book gets in the way. The dancers and their precision steps are incomparable. Also one cannot overlook the lighting by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer; they evoke every emotion imaginable and have partnered for many years on lots of shows, and may this brilliant partnership endure forever. Also, the arrangements and orchestrations by Daryl Waters are sensational.

Given all the talent and brilliance that emanates from the show, you can’t go wrong, I do suggest you see the show before mid-July due to Ms. McDonald taking a maternity leave, and no one would ever want to miss an Audra McDonald performance.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 11, 2016

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Joshua Henry, Brandon Victor Dixon, Billy Porter, Brian Stoke Mitchell & Richard Riaz Yoder. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Brandon Victor Dixon & Audra McDonald. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: The cast. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: The cast. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: The cast. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Brandon Victor Dixon & Audra McDonald. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Brian Stokes Mitchell & cast. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Billy Porter. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Joshua Henry & Brandon Victor Dixon. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Brian Stokes Mitchell. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Brandon Victor Dixon & Joshua Henry. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

‘SHUFFLE ALONG’: Adrienne Warren & Audra McDonald. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

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PORTRAIT OF THE JAZZ ICON: Audra McDonald in ‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.’ Photo: Evgenia Eliseeva

LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR & GRILL
By Lanie Robertson
Directed by Lonny Price
Circle in the Square Theatre
235 West 50th Street
(212-239-6200), http://ladydayonbroadway.com/

By Scott Harrah

It is difficult to think of the elegant, golden-voiced, five-time Tony winner Audra McDonald portraying the late tortured jazz singer Billie Holliday. After all, Ms. McDonald is best known for her soaring soprano voice, but interpreting Billie Holiday is tricky territory for any singer/actress because “Lady Day” herself was such a unique vocalist, with a tragic persona that was mythical, bigger than life and almost impossible to mimic.  Billie was a woman in agony, and one could sense and feel her sorrow with every plaintive note she sang, so recreating her soul in a musical dramatization is a tall order indeed.  Fortunately, Ms. McDonald never tries to be a Billie Holiday impersonator, and she displays, with heart-breaking veracity, the many dimensions of the groundbreaking jazz pioneer, from her booze and drug-addled body language and salty anecdotes told in a raspy speaking voice to her reedy song delivery and unique vocal phrasings that influenced not just jazz but music in general.

New Yorkers already know what a versatile musical-theater star Ms. McDonald is, but here she shows us that she’s also a richly complex actress with the ability to dig deep into Holiday’s mystique and make us understand the scale of the woman’s many afflictions, from substance abuse to troubles with the law and the discrimination and cruelty all African-American performers experienced in the pre Civil Rights days. Granted, on the surface Ms. McDonald is perhaps too glamorous for the role, but she captures, in various monologues and songs, every nuance of Billie, from her laconic mannerisms to tales of the personal abuse and oppression she suffered as a woman of color in the America of yesteryear, with very little education, an arsenal of talent and infamous inner demons.  Although Audra McDonald looks very little like Billie, even with the trademark gardenia in her hair, she gives us an illuminating portrait of one of the most important jazz artists ever.

This is the first Broadway mounting of Lanie Robertson’s 1986 Off-Broadway bio-play about Holiday, and it seems an odd vehicle for Ms. McDonald because this really cannot be classified as a play, musical or cabaret show, but is a hybrid of all these genres. Set in a small south Philadelphia bar circa 1959, shortly before the singer’s untimely death from cirrhosis and heart disease at age 44, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill is 90 minutes of Ms. McDonald as Billie reflecting on her life, sharing anecdotes and singing all of the Holiday hits, from “I Wonder Where Love Has Gone” and “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” to “God Bless the Child,” “Strange Fruit” and “T’ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.”

The show is loosely based on an alleged, real-life account of Billie Holiday playing in a Philadelphia dive bar in 1959 for just seven people. She was high on drugs, swilling liquor and performing a dozen or so of her songs alongside her piano player Jimmy Powers (Shelton Becton), while holding her pet chihuahua Pepi (played here by “Roxie”) for just seven people before finally “staggering” out of the place.

Director Lonny Price gives Ms. McDonald free rein to channel Billie Holiday in all her train-wreck glory, but the performance always feels natural and authentic, and Mr. Robertson’s script always paints the legend in a dignified light and never stoops to the sensationalistic lows of such recent Broadway bio-drama musicals as End of the Rainbow, the tabloid-style show about the end of Judy Garland’s life.

Although this show sheds no new light on Billie Holiday, nonetheless we leave Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill with an appreciation for the jazz icon’s unsettling life and talent, and marvel at the truth, insight, authenticity and marvelous texture of Ms. McDonald’s performance, one of the most challenging and outstanding of her career.

LADY DAY & HER DOG: Ms. McDonald as Billie with chihuahua Pepi (Roxie). Photo: Evgenia Eliseeva

LADY SINGING THE BLUES: Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday, shortly before her death at age 44. Photo: Evgenia Eliseeva

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 20, 2014
Reviewed at press performance on April 19, 2014

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