In the nineteen-thirties, Gypsy Rose Lee, perhaps the world's most famous stripper, helped transform burlesque from a vulgar pastime to café-society entertainment, simply by acting refined. She made arch references as she stripped-dropping names like George Bernard Shaw next to her garter.
The key promise here lies in Audra McDonald, the once-in-a-generation soprano megastar and winner of six Tony Awards, who plays Rose, Gypsy's ambitious juggernaut of a stage mother.
With a wink to the truth (even the autobiography played fast and loose with the story of how Louise Hovick became Gypsy Rose Lee), the quartet built the quintessential show-business tragedy: a battle royal between a stardom-obsessed mother and her daughters, whose childhoods she feeds into the industry's hungry maw.
The newest production, directed by George C. Wolfe, who has his own stack of Tonys, must realize that we are keen, even avid, to know what kind of monster this Rose will be.
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