How come the 2008 production of GYPSY didn't win the Tony for Best Revival?- Page 3

[blaxx]

Posted: 12/24/13 at 12:01am

^^^ Good argument, but Gypsy has won for revival in the past.

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/24/13 at 12:38am

It's definitely a good argument. SOUND OF MUSIC is pure syrup. GYPSY is raw and pretty ugly at times. It's easy to see why R&H is often the safer choice over GYPSY.

[The Other One]

Posted: 12/24/13 at 6:44am

Derrickg: Neither R&H show is as simplistic as you describe. Bigotry is often as subtle as SOUTH PACIFIC depicts, to the point where people don't realize they are bigots until they have to face it within themselves. Also, Nellie and Emile may indeed live happily ever after, but Liat and Cable do not. And no one defeats the Nazis in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. They put their personal values against a prevailing political environment and do what few others attempt. They escape.

As distinctive as GYPSY is, it's still a more familiar tale of both sides of parenting, and there have been so damned many productions of it by now that its impact has been blunted. You didn't watch it and make new discoveries as often as you found yourself saying "oh, this again". Laurents's tone is ultimately sour, and his direction emphasized that more than ever this time out. And, beautifully performed as it was, it did look awfully cheap.

I would say it was a fine production of a show that has been done often and done better, during a season in which one rarely revived classic was done to perfection and, in SUNDAY..., a more daring piece was produced more impressively as well. GYPSY did not win Best Revival because it wasn't the Best Revival.



Updated On: 12/24/13 at 06:44 AM

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/24/13 at 7:00am

South Pacific was the closest thing to theatrical perfection I have ever seen. I felt like I was being beaten over the head at Gypsy (I still liked it).

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/24/13 at 10:14am

It lost because of the poster design. Enough said.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/24/13 at 11:00am

The Gypsy revival was a vehicle for performances. It was awarded accordingly.

[Derrickg]

Posted: 12/25/13 at 8:51am

The one time Gypsy won Best Revival (1990), it was up against the first revival of Sweeney, a musical so dark it actually makes Gypsy look sunny by comparison, the Dustin Hoffman Merchant, and a creaky 1921 Somerset Maugham revival, the rasion d'etre of which was to give Rex Harrison one last Broadway outing (this was back before the category was split in 1994 into plays and musicals).

All that to say, I don't think that one win for Gypsy as a revival proves its popularity overall.

And of course, I was being reductive about the power and subtlety of the R&H shows, but I was trying to make a point and I realized I was paraphrasing something about Gypsy that I have read Sondheim say in an interview and obviously he says it better -- this is talking about the original production, but I think it relates to the revivals as well ...(courtesy of Zadan):

"Gypsy is not a terribly likable story. And what makes smash-hit musicals are stories that audiences want to hear--and it's always the same story. How everything turns out terrific in the end and the audience goes out thinking, That's what life is all about.

In My Fair Lady they are told that you too can be belle of the ball, even if you aren't educated ... It's the Cinderella story. The Sound of Music says you can eat your cake and have it -- you can get away from the Nazis, marry the man of your choice, without compromising your religious goodness... Now that may sound cynical but those are fairy stories and they are what make smash hits. And, I hasten to add, I like them too. So I'm not putting them down--but that's what's essential for a smash hit.

Gypsy says something fairly hard to take: that every child eventually has to become responsible for his parents. That you outgrow your parents and then eventually they become your responsibility ... they become your children. It's something that everybody knows but no one likes to think about a lot. And that's why Gypsy, at base, in spite of terrific reviews, wasn't a smash hit.

People who like the show often say they wish the curtain had fallen immediately after 'Rose's Turn.' That the last scene seems like an addendum of sorts. But the last scene is what the play is about -- the unpleasant truth of it. I think it's quite moving. But it's not very cheerful."

I would add, in relation to South Pacific in particular, while you can say, yes, things don't end happily for Liat and Cable, in a sense I think that actually just shows again that it's giving the audience what they want, in this case, a 1950 audience. A mixed race couple couldn't end up together for a happy ending at the time. Emile may have mixed race kids, but he and Nellie are not a mixed race couple, and it's easier for the audience to deal with.

Anyway, as discussed elsewhere in this thread, there was also this sense about South Pacific somehow being this newly rediscovered gem vs. Gypsy which was seen as old hat since it was being revived so soon after the previous revival. Though just to set the record straight the statement earlier in the thread "GYPSY was a lackluster production of a show that had a similarly luke-warm reception only five years earlier" I would say is not quite accurate. While this Gypsy had plenty of detractors, unlike the Peters revival, which got mixed reviews (though Brantley was a rave), the major critics pretty much all loved this production. But then, they pretty much all loved Sunday and South Pacific too. So, I guess the question was, of all these critically-acclaimed revivals, which do you choose? And I think probably some voters figured they could split the difference by voting for the performers in Gypsy, but the overall production award going to SP.

As mentioned also, SP had that non-profit LC budget and had both the full orchestra AND a huge, gorgeous physical production, while Gypsy had to make do with limited sets, costumes and the puppets/stuffed animals.

Still, I think the fact that South Pacific has always been a far more popular property than Gypsy made it no surprise that it was both the Tony-winner that year, and a far bigger hit. After all, the original production of SP played almost as many performances on Broadway as all five Broadway productions of Gypsy combined.







Updated On: 12/25/13 at 08:51 AM

[FutureDirector]

Posted: 12/30/13 at 1:32am

South Pacific beat Gypsy simply because SP took a risk and went for truth and character over vocal performance and spectacle where as Gypsy did what it always has done

[Neshinda]

Posted: 12/31/13 at 12:02am

Because Sunday and South Pacific were much better the fact that Sunday got very little or no Tony Awards kind of annoys me