Hentz and Brader deliver in classic “Gypsy” at Music Mountain

The musical “Gypsy” is thought to be by many the best musical of all time. One survey of Broadway composers had the majority pointing to “Gypsy” as best score ever written.
The show opened in 1959 with some of the brightest lights on Broadway associated with it. Jule Styne score, Stephen Sondheim lyricist (29 years old, fresh off of “West Side Story”), Arthur Laurents book, Jerome Robbins director and Ethel Merman the star.
The show is definitely in the camp of being a “book musical” and is dependent on good acting for good storytelling. It is neither a concept musical or one dependent on dancing. “The play is the thing.”
The show biz tale is of a mother, Rose, who is trying to get her baby daughter launched as a child star. That daughter, June, walks out on the act in her teens.
The second daughter doesn’t have the same skills to be a child star and eventually gets too old for the act the mother is pushing. The mother sells her out in the end to be a stripper at a burlesque house. Her boyfriend walks out on her, appalled at Rose’s selfishness and narcissism.
The show, now playing at Music Mountain Theatre, has two powerful performances by Anna Hentz as Mama Rose and Lauren Brader as Louise (Gypsy Rose Lee).
As a story musical, the storytelling is dependent on consistent strong acting throughout.

Though this musical is not the first to come to mind when thinking about ensemble, the show biz story of child actors breaking into the big league and becoming adult stars is one in which all storytellers on stage are pivotal to telling the story of producers, theaters, being on the road, parents who are managing agents, playing in a dive, looking for the big break.
Music Mountain is a special combination of community theater and theater professionals. There are 32 people in the cast nightly. The Baby June and Louise roles as children have been double cast, so 34 people are listed in the program.
The large cast, a third of them children, has a large spectrum of acting ability. There are moments which are lost due to lack of experience but some great surprises by performers you are not familiar with.
Gabrielle Arias is delightful as Baby June as a child. Wyatt Kim is joyful, singularly focused and wonderful as Tulsa, one of Rose’s troupe who has aspirations of dancing elsewhere. David Whiteman is strong as Pop, Rose’s dad who she puts the pinch on for money.
Kyle Binkley in the ensemble has several roles and stands out in all of them. The professional strippers Tessa Tura, Mazeppa and Electra (Denise Carr), Mazeppa (Laurie Braun) and Electra (Sharon Warner) are well cast and bring smiles all around in their memorable “You Gotta Have a Gimmick.”
But the powerhouse performances are that of Hentz and Brader. Hentz delivers on “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” and “Rose’s Turn,” but the highlight of the evening was the moment where mother and daughter tear into each other and show us all the accumulated pain that each has from pushing and shoving each other.
All the anger and frustration breaks and the feelings are raw and real. And even at the end, the stage mother of all stage mothers is still grabbing for top billing. Powerful and worth the ticket price to see two great actresses do those moments. Tickets are available at musicmountaintheatre.org. The show runs through March 6.

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