Patti’s Turn

I got a great birthday gift this year from my best bud, who took me to see Patti LuPone’s performance in Gypsy. And I must say- it was not really a “wallop-packing production”(The New York Times), or “the stuff Broadway dreams are made of”(The Daily News), and surely not “as good as it gets”(The Wallstreet Journal). It was a production of a spectacular play starring a woman with a booming voice and an even more overpowering ego. I mean, Patti didn’t seem like she even wanted to be there. She rushed through almost every lyric, and didn’t act as much as recite some lines and expect people to fall over with love because of her reputation. Personally, I’ll pick Bernadette’s performance, hands-down, any day. The richness and emotional nature of Peters’ performance was scores above LuPone’s. That said, Laura Benanti, who played Louise, was fantastic. Her character built throughout, and her transformation into Gypsy Rose Lee was phenomenal. Her job, and that of the rest of the cast, pulled the performance up out of the snore-laden gutters for me.  Am I alone out there in my take of Patti’s Tony-winning “stunner”(Time Out)?