Mainly on Directing

of the director. There are three, perhaps four, directors who know how to make a musical musical theatre or how to bring out the artist in a star. An illustration is the tale of Patti LuPone and Gypsy and the crunching sound of a hat being eaten …

THREE
Reviving the Revival
ONCE UPON A TIME, it was said that a certain Playwright swore hell could freeze over before he would allow a certain Star to play the legendary leading role in his legendary musical on a New York stage. Then, lo and behold! Not only did the Star play the role at New York City Center and hell not freeze over, but she was directed by the very same Playwright, in a production that itself was destined to become legendary. This is called Irony, one of the few certainties of life.
In the summer of 2006, Patti LuPone played Rose in a concert version of Gypsy at the Ravinia Festival outside Chicago. I was unaware of this until I read the New York Times review, in which the critic had reservations about her performance. Every report I heard after that was second- or third-hand. Word came—from where?—that she had a stunning success. More word—from where?—that Margaret Styne, Jule's lovely and perceptive widow, wanted her to come into New York and play Rose; that Stephen Sondheim said her performance had to be seen; that Stephen Sondheim hadn't seen her—therefore, did he really say she had to be seen, and who said he did?
Then sharp word—from whom?—that I was the obstacle to LuPone playing Rose in New York. Titillating, but nobody even asked my permission. Also word—from whom?—that it was because she had walked out of a starring role in my play Jolson Sings Again, preventing it from coming to Broadway and angering me so much, I swore no LuPone Rose for a New York stage—ever. While it is true she walked out of an Off-Broadway production of Jolson—which has never been seen in New York—and also true I was angry at the time, that was many years ago, and I am not an injustice collector. Furthermore, so much of far more importance has happened in my life since then that the incident is as blurred in my memory as my first sexual experience. The metaphor is not accidental; it's a reflection of the importance I place on sex in life. It's in this Gypsy—which isn't accidental, either.
Then I was sent YouTube clips of Patti LuPone singing Rose's three big songs at that Ravinia Festival. That was the first time I heard of YouTube, a new fact of life not, I was told, to be taken casually. I assumed the anonymous sender was a demented LuPone fan, furious with me as The Obstacle—until the accompanying message popped up:
“Torture yourself for just two minutes and look at these.”
I looked. I saw his (or her) point. She was not a Rose to remember; still, it could not be denied that she could sing the hell out of Rose, not with a Merman trumpet but with a voice as rich, more nuanced, and—for me—potentially more effective dramatically. (I wonder how Merman, with her limited acting ability and musical-comedy face, would be received in Gypsy today.)
At that timely point, Scott Rudin called. LuPone had called him because she knew he and I were friends. Scott, who likes playing theatre matchmaker, delayed returning her call until I answered a question. Would I direct her in Gypsy?
I had liked her very much the last time I had seen her: in John Doyle's instrumental revival of Sweeney Todd. But Gypsy takes its tone from Rose. I didn't really know Patti LuPone, so I didn't know what her Rose might be. From the YouTube clips and from interviews she gave on the Internet and TV (risky venues), I wasn't sure she knew, either. If it hadn't been easy for her to call me, I certainly understood; if she had done it because she desperately wanted to play Rose in New York, I also understood. Her call merited a meeting. I don't “do lunch,” but dinner could be awkward if we didn't get on, so lunch it was. I invited her to a very Italian restaurant in my neighborhood—she carried on as though she'd been born in Firenze, and the restaurant's waiters carried on as though they thought she'd been.
Lunch lasted three and a half hours. I said almost everything I had to say about some performing ruts she had gotten into. I had done some research and read some interviews she had given about herself—denigrating herself, to my mind—and some she had given about Rose which I thought were way off track. If a director is really interested in who his star is and what she really thinks about the character she would play, he will be wasting time if he doesn't learn as much as he can as early as he can. If he isn't interested, then either he thinks he's the star or he's her stage manager.
Patti's reactions, which included tears, were surprising. Totally uncomplicated was a passionate love of the theatre and a determination to achieve the best she could every second she was on stage. She made an effort to be completely open, and at times she was; at others, she was wary of trusting. The theatre hadn't been particularly kind to her—neither critics, columnists, producers, some of her fellow actors. Nothing had come easily. She agreed that if we were to do Gypsy, we would have to start from scratch and take the journey together. And there we left it.
I wasn't sure. Her desire to play Rose had been so paramount, it had gotten in the way of our really connecting. I didn't really know her.
My partner—an inadequate word equaled only by “gay,” and is that a coincidence?—my partner, Tom Hatcher, told me to direct Gypsy with Patti LuPone. He didn't want the Sam Mendes production to be New York's last memory of