Gypsy - Different endings?

[ChessMad]

Posted: 10/9/11 at 3:13pm

I've read that some productions of Gypsy has slightly different endings. I've only ever seen the movie with Rossalind Russel and the TV-movie with Bette Midler and would love to hear the differences between all of the Broadway productions.

I've never read any of the scripts, I only have most of the cast recordings, so I would love to hear more.

[ljay889]

Posted: 10/9/11 at 4:03pm

It usually ends with Rose and Louise walking off together. Some productions have ended it with them walking off, and Rose taking one last look at her name in lights.

The most drastically different ending was the 2008 revival. Rose and Louise still reconcile. Louise walks off laughing. Rose stays center stage, grabbing at her name in lights, as some of the bulbs dim out. I believe you can see it on Youtube.

The actual finale dialogue never really changed, though I think Laurents cut a line or two for the 2008 revival. Updated On: 10/9/11 at 04:03 PM

[ljay889]

Posted: 10/9/11 at 4:07pm

Here's Patti's ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm9tJpmyFFo

I quite liked it at the time, and still do.

[gypsy4]

Posted: 10/9/11 at 6:30pm

I always found the Positive direction was more suitable.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/9/11 at 6:44pm

^^^
I know I'm watching it on YouTube and that isn't a fair representation. But Louise's exit with that maniacal laugh at Rose's dream of a mother/daughter magazine cover seems really cruel.

I've never hated any Rose so much that I thought she deserved that much comeuppance.

Of course, I'm watching a bad clip. One of the things I've always loved about Lupone is that she is every bit as great an actress as a musical performer. So maybe the moment worked beautifully on stage.

But GYPSY is by and large a fairly grim show. It's primary theme is abandonment. I think it's important that Rose gets her big stage debut (even if it's only a fantasy), and that she and Louise have a reconciliation of sorts at the end. All IMHO, of course.

[binau]

Posted: 10/9/11 at 7:01pm

If I remember correctly, I read someone claiming (could have been Arthur? Idk) in an interview that the point of the ending was that Louise realises that Rose will never change but does accept her for what she is etc..

But I do agree from the way Laura Benanti laughs (at least on recordings) it does kind of come across as a bit condescending/hopeless. I don't think that's necessarily a problem though...Rose is a difficult woman to have a relationship with..

Updated On: 10/9/11 at 07:01 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 4:35am

The condescension by Louise may be entirely believable (and justified), but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

FWIW I was told by the Lansbury production team that they deliberately wanted Louise to be tall so that Rose's head fit neatly on Louise's shoulder in the final tableau. (With Lansbury, that meant Louise had to be REALLY tall, which is why they used Cyd Charisse's daughters.) As Sondheim has said more than once, the point of that last scene is that we eventually switch places and become the parent to our parents.

The cruel laughter and Louise walking off without Rose sacrifices everything intended in that last scene just so Lupone can have a diva moment at the end. Does she really need another one that badly?

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 6:45am

I basically agree with Gaveston2. The condescending laugh by Louise undermines the reconciliation. In the original production, Rose and Louise walk off arm in arm into the wings, without Rose looking back at her name up in lights, which at the Broadway Theatre was above the proscenium, not backstage.

I would like to backtrack a bit. During the final stages of Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim's writing of the score, Sondheim's mentor Oscar Hammerstein II pointed out that all of the musical numbers ended with blackouts or the Act One curtain. He felt that the audience had a need to give sustained applause for the star of the show, Rose(Merman). Thus, "Rose's Turn" is placed as the 11 O'clock number. As I remember, Merman just stood in place, letting the great applause wash over her. In London, the applause was seen to be in Rose's head and accordingly she bowed. This "mad scene" was repeated when the London production came to the Winter Garden in 1974. As I have mentioned in previous threads, I felt that Angela Lansbury over played the mad scene, portraying Rose as a super angry person that bordered on over kill. Tyne Daly did not overdo the singing of "Rose's Turn", nor did Bernadette Peters. Patti LuPone's version was angry, but not overly so as she bowed to the audience's applause. So, these slight variations differed in the 5 major Broadway productions. But only in the Patti LuPone GYPSY did Louise give a mocking laugh, leaving Rose on stage alone to look at her gradually dimming name in lights, crestfallen.

As for the Rosalind Russell Rose, I saw that abominable movie only once and have blocked it from my mind, so I don't remember how it ended.

Updated On: 10/10/11 at 06:45 AM

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 11:22am

hum...a different ending...picture this: Merman in her final moments singing Everything's Coming Up Roses...as she is going insane before our eyes, she does the 'Let Me Entertain You', Gypsy Rose Lee, "Full Monty" full frontal ending right there center stage without the blinding lights behind her. Now that would have been a different ending! Comedy or Tragedy? You be the judge.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 11:37am

As much as I really didn't like Bernadette in the role or that whole production, I adored her final moment in stage. After Louise exists, Rose opens the door and leaves but turns back to look at the empty stage. She takes it all in andslightly shakes her head with the look in her eyes knowing once and for all and finally accepting that it will never happen for her, before turning and shutting the door behind her for good. It was some of the finest acting I'd ever seen.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 11:41am

Laurents has dropped several lines from the last scene in the productions he's directed.

I don't recall Lansbury leaning her head on Zan Charisse's shoulder. Maybe she did it and I've just forgotten. But given how tall Lansbury is, Zan Charisse would have had to be very tall indeed or would have had to wear very high heels.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 3:30pm

(With Lansbury, that meant Louise had to be REALLY tall, which is why they used Cyd Charisse's daughters.)

Cyd Charisse was NOT Zan Charisse's mother but her aunt by marriage. Dancer/choreographer Robert Tucker is Zan's father and dancer/actress Nana Visitor is her sister.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 3:37pm

My favorite ending to Gypsy is when Louse enters after Rose's Turn and hacks her mother to pieces with an axe. It's effective and gets the point across really well.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 6:35pm

I appreciate being corrected on the genealogy of the Charisse/Tucker family. The production I worked on (the Broadway version recreated in Florida in late 1976) co-starred Zan's sister Nan in Zan's stead. At the time, Nan was using Tucker as her stage name. (She was brilliant, BTW, and tall enough for Lansbury to briefly rest her head on Nan's shoulder.)

Gypsy9, I think Lansbury must have toned down the anger considerably over the length of the Broadway run. (You are correct, BTW, that Laurents added the "silent bow" for the London production; Sondheim mentions this in his latest book.)

By the time she got to us in Florida, Lansbury's "Turn" was more triumphant than angry. (If one had to criticize Lansbury's Rose, it would almost certainly be that she is a tad too nice.) And her silent bow was such a subtle shift in expression that it was actually frightening. One moment it was one of the greatest musical theater stars of the day reveling in a well-earned standing ovation, and the next it was Rose bowing to silence with a deranged look in the eyes that gave one goosebumps.

I'm sad to say I used to have a production photo of just that moment, but I can no longer find it. If I ever do, I'll find a way to scan it for you.

***

Back to the endings, I think one can chart the plot of Gypsy as a series of abandonments. Rose walks out on her father; Baby June and Tulsa desert Rose; Herbie finally leaves in Act II.

What's different about the ending is that LOUISE DOES NOT LEAVE. Yes, Rose and Louise fight, but of everyone in Rose's life, Louise comes back.

I can see the ending where Rose takes a final look at "what might have been" as she exits, but I think it's essential that Rose and Louise are still together at the end.

No coup de teatre is worth losing that.

[hushpuppy]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 9:17pm

Forgive me but I cannot remember exactly which production this was, but I remember one ending where Louise and Rose start to leave, Louise walks through the door and Rose starts to follow her. Rose stops, turns, looks back, as the lights on the runway slowly come up and then slowly fade out. Then Rose exits. Heartbreaking.

[gvendo2005]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 9:39pm

^ Lansbury.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 9:48pm

That's also the staging/direction they used for the Midler TV version.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 11:08pm

The scene from the 2008 revival is brilliant through Lupone's telling Benanti about the dream. Lupone stops herself brjlliantly between "Madame Rose" and "and her daughter Gypsy," separating those two beats to emphasize the star and the woman Louise has become in contrast to Rose herself. The direction seems, from my perspective, already quite innovative up until that point, and very effective.

Then comes Benanti's unfeeling response, which is not at all what we are expecting.

It's a fascinating moment. On the one hand it seems to come completely out of left field because Mama really has for the first time let go and acknowledged her daughter's womanhood. This seems evident to everyone in the theater except the daughter. It also seems jarring given how warm and loving Louise has just been a moment before in telling Rose that it's ok when Rose harrowingly and shamefully realizes that she neglected Louise.

On the other hand, what does Louise's lack of vulnerability mean when she laughs at her mother? Is Rose's ultimate acknowledgement of Louise as an independent woman and star too little too late, leaving us with a more tragic Gypsy than we have ever seen?

A great risk and I give them all a lot of credit. It's vexing. That's the point. But, it's still vexing, especially since the typical promise of perpetual closeness between Rose and Louise, and a neverending familiar overbearing stage motherhood that Louise can handle with good humor, is what many of us have always loved about the end of this great show.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/11/11 at 1:52am

^^^^^

And as I walked off the stage it occurred to me
She'd grown up just like me
My girl was just like me

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home, girl?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then, dear,
You know we'll have a good time then.

***

This makes perfect psychological sense, that Rose has indeed turned Louise into a miniature copy of Rose. But does GYPSY really have to be so grim?

Posted: 10/11/11 at 2:24am

Even in earlier versions, there is that suggestion that when Louise becomes a star, she loses some of her heart--or at the least softness--with success. I always got the impression Laurents wanted to, in his last production, play that up even more as showing Rose having created a (bit of a) monster, but I do find it a bit too much for how the show is written--I don't feel the ending should be *quite* that bleak.

[philcrosby]

Posted: 10/11/11 at 10:27am

That clip was one of the most self-indulgent and mean versions of that finale ever done. Truly Arthur at his worst.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/11/11 at 4:13pm

Again, I didn't see the show live with Lupone. But the YouTube clips of her "Rose's Turn" and the final scene struck me as Method-Acting classes run amok. (Which is not to say Lupone isn't brilliant--she is. But Jeeze, Louise!)

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/12/11 at 4:57pm

"Truly Arthur at his worst."

I would say that place is reserved forever for his staging of "There's A Place For Us" in the last West Side Story revival.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 10/12/11 at 5:13pm

I would say that place is reserved forever for his staging of "There's A Place For Us" in the last West Side Story revival.

The damn song is titled "Somewhere". Geez!

By the way, the other correct titles for the OTHER songs from WEST SIDE STORY are:

"America" (not "I Like to Live in America")
"The Jet Song" (not "When You're a Jet")
"Something's Coming" (not "Who Knows?")
"Cool" (not "Boy Boy Crazy Boy")
"A Boy Like That" (not "A Boy Like That Who Killed Your Brother")
"Maria" (not "I Just Met a Girl Named Maria")
"Tonigt" (not "It All Began Tonight")

[pinoyidol2006]

Posted: 10/12/11 at 5:46pm

^LOL.

I think they called in one episode of Glee, they used "There's a Place for Us" as the title.