Review: Gypsy at Shinfield Players Theatre
Barrie Theobald • Published 12 May 2010 09:00
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BASED on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the play revolves around the efforts of her pushing Mother, Madame Rose (Annette Chishick) to advance the theatrical careers of her two girls, June (Marion Hancock) and Louise (Caroline Kennedy).
Madam Rose never missed a trick when it came to that aim despite the attempts of Herbie (Alex Auchen) to curtail her actions and when her favourite daughter June fled her baby doll blonde wig and gown to run away with one of the lads in her dancing troupe, she immediately set to work boosting the career of her other daughter until she, too, shook off the shekels and made her name as a striptease artiste.
The director (Joff Hamilton) dispensed with normal stage scenery, relying instead on back projection to denote the locations of the many scenes as the storyline moved from hometown Seattle to Broadway and it was unfortunate that this did not always work correctly on the night I attended.
With much of the action taking place backstage in many burlesque theatres across the USA until Gypsy made the big time at Minsky's in New York, the surrounding black borders were only rarely relieved by bright stage costumes when the action moved to the stage proper.
However, the musical items were well executed and accompanied by an excellent backstage orchestra directed by Mark Webb that lifted this somewhat pedestrian production.
This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 06 May 10
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