Bringing 'Gypsy' to Broadway not easy

NEW YORK -- The tabloids may be sniping and the Internet chat rooms chirping, but director Sam Mendes has more important things to worry about - getting "Gypsy," starring Bernadette Peters, ready for Broadway.\nFor five weeks, Mendes has operated in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of previewing the season's most anticipated musical revival in front of New York audiences.\n"Things do take longer here, and I don't know why, but they do," said the British-born Mendes of his $8.5 million production, which opens Thursday. "And I've used every day of it."\n"Gypsy" is the show-biz saga of Rose, the ultimate stage mother who helps turn her forlorn, gawky daughter into one of the most famous strippers of all time, Gypsy Rose Lee. It's a classic American musical, and some consider the show -- book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim -- the best ever written.\nPreviews began March 31 and from the moment the curtain came down on that initial performance, the buzz began, much of it not particularly kind to the show or its star.\nThe New York Post reported that Laurents, 84, was unhappy with what he saw at that first preview and stormed up the aisle after the performance to confront its producers. Not true, according to Laurents, who said that he was not the vocal theatergoer.\nHe said the press was "lurking around looking for trouble, and I guess they overheard something and then didn't bother to identify who it was.\n"Sam and I have had a terrific working relationship," Laurents said. "I have not been breathing down his neck. I came (to rehearsals) when I thought it was necessary. Sam listens -- and that's very rare, particularly for a director of his stature."\nEven so, chat rooms began whispering about the kewpie-doll Peters, best-known for her performances in such shows as "Sunday in the Park With George," "Into the Woods" and the 1999 revival of "Annie Get Your Gun."\nAs Rose, Peters was miscast, some said. They worried her voice would not hold out while playing what is considered the musical-theater equivalent of Hamlet. When she missed several performances last week because of a cold and vocal strain, it seemed their worst fears were confirmed. Yet, as the weeks went on, chat-room gossip has grown more positive, with the most recent comments -- particularly on www.talkinbroadway.com -- often downright laudatory.\nNot that Mendes has paid \nattention.\n"My rule in previews is: You don't read anything," he said. "You keep your head down and work.\n"I did give the cast a speech: 'There's been a lot written about this. Please don't read things and if you do, keep them to yourself and don't get knocked off course.'"\nFrom the original production in 1959 (starring Ethel Merman) to subsequent revivals in 1974 (Angela Lansbury) and in 1989 (Tyne Daly), "Gypsy" has appeared on Broadway every 15 or so years. All were critical and box-office successes, with Lansbury and Daly -- but not Merman -- winning Tony Awards.\n"Gypsy" faces stiff competition in this year's Tony race for best musical revival, with "Nine" and "La Boheme" likely to be major contenders.\nMendes, who won an Academy Award for his direction of "American Beauty," has confounded his critics before with casting and come up a winner -- getting Nicole Kidman to act on stage, and discreetly take off her clothes, in "The Blue Room," or having the likable Tom Hanks play a hit man in the film "The Road to Perdition."\n"There's one thing better than having a really wonderful actor," Mendes said. "And that's having a really wonderful actor who has never done what you are asking them to do before."\nMendes told Peters she would have to play her age (she's 55), she couldn't wear her customary mountain of hair and she was not going to look glamorous. "Rose can be sexy, but she's a vulgar, brassy broad," the director says.\n"You just pray that whatever chemistry exists between you works, and it's worked with Bernadette," Mendes said.