|
 |
Laura Benanti Is the Ungypped Gypsy
By Doug Sturdivant
30 Aug 2008
 |
|
Laura Benanti
|
Laura Benanti's definitive performance of Gypsy's
blooming wallflower Louise has won the actress raves — and a Tony.
*
A few Sundays back, Laura Benanti stood before a Rainbow Room full of clamoring press, counting her blessings and accessories for the lah-de-dah fashion faction. "My dress," began the inventory, "is Marc Bouwer. My earrings are Judith Ripka. My bag, which I'm currently not carrying but is beautiful, is Judith Leiber. And this" — she beamed, saving her latest and most elusive trinket for last — "is the Tony Award!"
It took ten years on Broadway, six shows, a couple of choice Encores! performances and scads of benefits for Benanti to utter those happy words — relatively good mileage, as these star arrivals go. What's more, she made it before she turned 30 (with two years to spare), and she did it in the featured performance of a title role. Gypsy Rose Lee, stripper extraordinaire, is a supporting character in the musical story of her life, the iconic Gypsy — slow to emerge from the shadow of her flashy, star-powered sister, June, just a tackily dressed (often as half a cow) kid from the chorus called Louise.
Until now, the role was not the stuff of which Tonys were made. Rather, Tonys have gone to the maternal mechanism making the show — and the girls — go on all cylinders through the death-twitches of vaudeville: Momma Rose Hovick, the monster stage-mother of them all, clomped off with the top Tony more often than not. (Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly and, now, Patti LuPone were all directed to Tonys by scripter Arthur Laurents; nominated but no cigar: Ethel Merman and Bernadette Peters.)
It took Benanti to break "the Gypsy curse," and it didn't just stop with her. Right in the middle of her Tony press conference, the curse took another crack when co-star Boyd Gaines nailed the Featured Actor Tony — his fourth — for Herbie, Rose's booker and stand-up guy who stands it as long as he can, then leaves. His win makes him the most Tony-ed of male actors; Julie Harris is the only performer with more (one more).
After the last man standing has vanished, mother and daughter have the stage to themselves — and have it out, in one of the most emotionally draining donnybrooks in theatre history. What's interesting about this round is that Benanti arrives for battle a Star of stainless steel, full of flint, ready to do battle with the cyclonic LuPone.
"I'm not a yeller, by nature," she admits, "so that's where I struggled in rehearsal. I'd start to cry, instantly. My initial instinct is 'go inward.' 'Hurt' is more a place I go to."
Continued...
Click Here to Buy Tickets to This Show
Contact Us | Advertise | Privacy Policy
Send questions and comments to the Webmaster
Copyright © 2008 Playbill, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
|
|