Gypsy: A Musical Fable – Buxton Opera House

Joanna Riding in Gypsy at Buxton Opera House. Picture: Genevieve Girling

Gypsy continues at Buxton Opera House until 24 July 2022

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

It’s been only a couple of days since I sailed on the SS American in the Depression Era sparkler Anything Goes, and here I am today, back in the Great Depression to witness the 1920s and 30s from a very different angle. This time, I’m on very dry land for Gypsy: A Musical Fable: Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim’s musical retelling of the real-life story of Rose Hovick and her relationship with her daughter Louise, who becomes the global burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee.

The story hardly needs recounting. Inspired by a dream, Rose and her two performing daughters June and Louise embark on a national tour that appears to involve kidnapping children for their musical act. The indentured kids bash out their tired vaudeville act around the country with the help of Herbie, a one-time manager and now candy salesman who has a soft spot for Rose, and they finally break into the Orpheum circuit.

After the headliner of the show, June, elopes with one of the boys, the others read the writing on the wall and split, leaving just Rose, Louise and Herbie to carve a new path to stardom. But vaudeville is dying and being replaced by burlesque, and Rose’s desperate need to see Louise’s name (and her own!) in lights sees the reluctant Louise turn to ‘tasteful’ stripping…

This exciting new production in Buxton from director Paul Kerryson is the second collaboration between Buxton Opera House and the Buxton International Festival, after their well-received A Little Night Music last year. It’s also a gift for the two-time Olivier winner Joanna Riding, who gets to sink her teeth into one of the greatest female roles in musical theatre history.

And sink her teeth in she does! It comes as no surprise to learn that Riding is superb as Mama Rose, portraying her with all the ferocity required but also imbuing the character with a rare humanity that makes her ultimate breakdown utterly devastating. Riding’s Rose is a sympathetic character, at least at the start. There is a definite sense of her spinning out of control in a slow-motion car crash, rather than maintaining a fervoured mental state from the start. Her increasing desperation eats at her (voraciously so, in the way that she chows down on dog food!), and we witness her descent from just another pushy showbiz mom to a borderline psychopath.

While the real Rose was something of an astute businesswoman – at the peak of their success, her juvenile turns were raking in the equivalent today of $16,000 a week, apparently – Laurents’ Rose is the matron of a ragtag bunch clinging on to the last vestiges of a dying vaudeville. The costumes might get the occasion refresh – newsboys, servicemen, farmers, toreadors – but artistically the material is always the same.

(One minor issue I’ve always had with the show is the endless reprising of this annoying song, made worse by being sung by deliberately irritating showbiz children! I know this is the point – and that Rose subverts the song for her strip act – but it does grate a little with me. Anyway…)

Here, our Louise/Gypsy Rose Lee is brought to life by Monique Young, who does a very good job of evolving from a shy, supposedly plain child actor into a confident burlesque star. She even seems to grow physically during the show, straightening herself out until finally she’s towering over her mother, literally and figuratively.

David Leonard is warm and likeable as Herbie – the character I always feel most sorry for – and I enjoyed Liam Dean’s Tulsa, who does a dapper job of ‘All I Need is the Girl’ in David Needham’s spot-on choreo. On saying that, I feel Kerryson could’ve done more to explore Louise’s unrequited affection for him – in the heartbreaking moment when they finish their dance, for example, they just disappear off stage. Oh, bye then.

There are thankfully plenty of comedy moments among this depression, and Kerryson and his cast do a great job of milking them all. The highlight is the terrifying trio of strippers Mazeppa (Rebecca Lisewski), Electra (Aiesha Pease) and Tessa Tura (Tiffany Graves), each more hilarious than the other. ‘Gotta Get a Gimmick’ is definitely an audience favourite.

There are aspects of the production that suffer from this short run – a few wobbles with the dialogue, a couple of ropey American accents, and some baggy scene changes – but these quibbles are minor. In fact, clunky scene shifting allows for MD Ben Atkinson and his 13-piece orchestra (yes, I’d call them an orchestra, not band) to shine with more of Styne’s fabulous music. Bravo in particular to the brass!

But ultimately it’s Riding’s show, and her nerve-shredding star turn is very much worth the trip to beautiful Buxton. With such stunning ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’ and ‘Rose’s Turn’, it’s bordering on a crime that Riding is only on stage for eight performances. Catch it if you can.

Craig Glenday

Remaining performances: Wednesday 20 July (2pm and 7.30pm) and Sunday 24 July (2pm)