Entertainment

EVERYTHING’S BRIGHT LIGHTS AND LOLLIPOPS

IN truth, no one was ever born to do anything – except bawl their lungs out – but Patti LuPone comes pretty damn close as Momma Rose in Jule Styne’s “Gypsy.”

LuPone bawls with the best of them, but realizes, to quote the show, that “You Gotta Get a Gimmick.” In her case, that “gimmick” is an unassailable talent and showbiz genius.

She brought both to the St. James Theatre last night, following a three-week “tryout” at City Center in July. And though this essentially modest production has the lingering scent of a summer stockpot, its virtues are such that few will care.

There have been a procession of remarkable Roses – from Ethel Merman through Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Betty Buckley and Bernadette Peters.

Of them all, LuPone most closely resembles Merman, but she’s still her own woman and her own Rose, the archetypal shrew of a showbiz mother.

What’s special about LuPone is the unexpected shading and nuance – brassy one moment, grotesque the next, then pathetic, even tragic.

Merman wasn’t much of an actress (though her voice could launch a thousand ships), but LuPone is, together with Lansbury, surely the most formidable actress ever to assume the role.

And what a role – and what a musical. I like it more every time I see it.

This is partly to do with Styne’s engaging music and Stephen Sondheim’s beautifully crafted lyrics, but the overwhelming credit must go to Arthur Laurents’ book. Suggested by (but not based on) “The Memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee,” it’s possibly the best book ever for a Broadway musical.

Here is a story line with people – real, live people – setting it apart from such other great musicals as “Oklahoma!,” “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Hello, Dolly!”

Everyone – from the tired, tattered but gallant old strippers (Marilyn Casky, Alison Fraser, Lenora Nemetz) to Leigh Ann Larkin as the nicely pouting Dainty June (who in real life found fame as June Havoc) and Tony Yazbeck as Tulsa, the aspiring hoofer – comes up roses.

Along with Rose, the biggest beneficiaries of Laurents’ book are Boyd Gaines’ weather-beaten, rueful and delicately charming Herbie, the long-suffering manager, and Laura Benanti as the drooping wallflower Louise, who finally sings out and is transmogrified into that stripper of strippers, Gypsy Rose Lee.

Benanti is terrific, handling that transformation with more skill than any Louise I’ve seen, and standing toe-to-toe with LuPone in one of drama’s most effective shouting matches. She also does the tease-strip bit very much like the real Gypsy Rose Lee, who I once saw heading an all-star variety show at the London Palladium.

With a grand 25-piece orchestra (not a synthesizer in peeping distance), what is there not to love?

Well, Laurents’ own direction, though as crisp as Melba toast, is sometimes overemphatic (there are enough second-takes to put a movie into financial overrun) and the staging, with the orchestra at the back of the stage, looks too much like the original “Encores!” presentation.

James Youmans’ small-scale settings seem budget-size for Broadway, and Martin Pakledinaz’s costumes have a thrift-shop look that’s only partly appropriate.

But with LuPone and Benanti aboard, who could complain? Only a critic.