With Audra McDonald, he found a more wounded, more modern Rose.
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Theres nothing diva-y about her; nobody even glanced in her direction.
Brown, while the music director futzed with some orchestration in the corner.
Wolfe sat on the floor, then leaped up; he was in constant motion.
He worked out some blocking and exchanged a whispered word with McDonald.
Two words sit on the marquee of the Majestic Theatre: AUDRA GYPSY.
Audra McDonald is a once-in-forever talent.
To those unfamiliar with the show (is there anybody?
), Rose is Lear, or Medea, if youd like.
But anybody would have thought him a dream director for the project.
But what does a director do?
I personally get a big thrill from a director controlling the way my eyes move across a stage.
Well get back to that in the spoiler section.
But revivals are a particular matter.
Why are we bringing this forward?
That was my question too.
In some respects, McDonald as Rose was reason enough to revive it (certainly for commercial purposes).
Still, I hadnt seen much new at the rehearsal he invited me to.
There was no apparent imposition of his ego on the production.
LookingforRose
Wolfe signed on to the job last winter.
He begandiscussions with Brown…
… andhis costume designer, Toni-Leslie James.
But I wondered what Wolfe was bringing to these conversations.
It was our first day in the new theater, and Elaine was pacing across the stage.
He got up to imitate Stretch, hilariously; she was one of the theaters great eccentrics.
And she said, This is bigger than the Newman?
She said, I like it!
Its filled with characters who never got enough.
Finally, at the Neil Simon, Elaine got enough.
And that put me on the journey of someone wanting more and never getting it.
What Wolfe did, he told me, was scour the script.
He parsed every line, every speech, every lyric.
I go digging, he said.
I learn about the period.
I go digging for images, and it all opens up things inside my brain.
Wolfe started isolating moments in the book and score as clues.
Sometimes a single word is enough to open a door, he said.
It was funny here, too, but Wolfe also took it more seriously.
Its a joke, but thats dog food.
Shes hungry, he explained.
What more needs to be said?
He sounded more like aliterary criticthan what I imagined a director to be.
We talked about the scene Id seen a couple of weeks before and McDonalds singing of Some People.
But shes also sharing something, and when he steps on it, she says Fuck you to him.
I became fascinated by this woman, he continued.
Someone tell me, she sings, when is it my turn?
I became obsessed with that line.
So she set out, and there was no blueprint, no road map.
The path that was designed for her was uninteresting to her.
I understood that very personally.
I had a grandmother who was my protector who was also very ferocious.
I grew up around these women who just went no.
Through his digging, Wolfe came to a reading of Rose that I had never considered.
The phantom mother who abandoned her when she was young is so huge, Wolfe said.
Laurents famously asked Merman if she was prepared to play Rose as a monster.
Wolfe had earlier mentioned one small change hed made in the show.
Ive talked about that with Audra a lot, Wolfe said.
Was Isupposedto ignore that?
Id gotten the impression that Wolfe intended the production to be color-blind, but I wasnt sure.
I dont know because were still exploring.
Upstairs at the Majestic, I saw this exploration during a day of tech rehearsal.
There are two primary schools of directing, Wolfe told me.
You ingest their perceptions, they ingest yours, and it becomes an amalgam.
How much is she aware of the power structure?
Whats going to happen once this man takes possession of this pretty little girl?
Her little baby girl is going to be entrusted in the care of some rich white man.
So, not color-blind at all.
But also not literal-historical.
Instead, race figured as something more internal, as aspects of a character.
He was the only spot in the spotless room.
And he got through the door without pushing a broom.Sometimes Im George the director.
Sometimes Im George from Kentucky.
Sometimes Im gay George.
And sometimes Im Black and the only one there.
He was much more psychologist than technician or autocrat.
A couple of weeks later, it was time for the first preview.
Were not the victims of the audience.
Theyre our victims and theyre going to help us.
Our final scene partner has showed up and its them.
Orienting a version ofGypsyaround I had a dream and When is it my turn?
these are the most famous lyrics in the show did Wolfe really have something new to say?
In other words, would his burrowing be enough?
I kept asking him to be specific about what hed done to breathe his vision ofGypsyinto his actors.
All he really seemed to be saying is that he talked to them.
How much difference could that possibly make?
In subtle but crucial ways, it was a distinct and more powerfulGypsythan I had ever seen before.
The physical production did not dramatically deviate from theGypsys that came before it.
Every line was the same; also many of the shticks.
The overture was as exuberant as ever.
As in every other production Ive seen, Rose makes her entrance from the back of the theater.
When McDonald appears, the audience does what it is expected to do: erupts.
In most respects, Wolfe could have stopped there.
He gave the audience what it had come for.
But the stagecraft and the perfect score appeared secondary.
Not everything worked for me, but the important stuff did.
The racial shift mattered in ways that didnt announce themselves but were palpable.
McDonald plays her as a tragic heroine terrified of abandonment.
The result is a Rose for whom I felt more sympathy than seems possible.
And it wasnt just McDonald.
I saw that in a way I had never before.
This much I knew: Wolfe was meticulous.
He had thought through every single moment in the text.
He made no decision because it would look cool or have an extraneous theatrical effect.
You figure it out, he said to me.
The world has entered you, then you invite other people to enter the world you create.
His principal tool is conversation.
The rest is kind of like osmosis.
The ultimate job of a director is to make yourself invisible.
So it looks like those words, those choices, are beingmade up in the moment, Wolfe said.
I instantly understood, he said.
Shes not a horrible mother.
She cant feed these kids.
Not enough food, not enough success, not enough money.
Its all there in the book.
And just infuse that in your body and then the audience will absorb the stakes of whats going on.
I keep asking them, Who has the power, who has the power in this fucking scene?
That changes an actor.
Theres no such thing as a neutral choice.
A lot of the rehearsal process is digging and asking the question, Whats underneath the thought?
I find actors to be incredibly brave people.
And I have a go at create as protective an environment as I possibly can.
On the importance of rhythm:
Its all about rhythm.
And thats whereBring in da Noisecame from: I wanted to control the audience for the entire time.
Appendix2:SpoilerSection
Several questions you may have after seeing George C. Wolfes Gypsy revival.
I didnt want to create a sense of wonder, which is what the strobe does.
I wanted to invite them into her decision-making process.
Theyre going to be powerful and beyond harm.
She knows what America is, she knows what it means to be a person of color.
So Rose gets white boys to help make the act successful.
There are plays that examine this in a very specific way.
Im using it as an energy, he said.
2.Why cast a mixed-race actress as June?
To me, it was interesting about assimilation, following historical legacies about showbiz and entertainment, Wolfe said.
Im not telling the Lena Horne story.
3.Why style Gypsy Rose Lee as Josephine Baker?
Well, shes styled as many things.
That was not Roses intention, but that was what ended up happening.
If women cant exist within the structure that has been decided for them, thats one of the options.
And last night I just had her pulling back her dress and showing her leg.
I wanted it to be this intense sort of subtext that was infusing the action.
Its telling these stories that are American stories.
I became fascinated with the composition of the creative team.
Sondheim was part of the Sondheim-Prince legacy, where a darker edge began to infiltrate musicals.
And Jule Styne [who wrote the music] was of another tradition.
I felt like this show was what it was on the way to what it would become.
4.Is this production race-specific?
Could you cast a white woman to follow Audra McDonald?
You just switch things out, he said.
Race informs her motivation but isnt necessary.
Her decisions are rooted in wanting more, of desperation.
5.Why does Rose now share some of her songs?
Theres a collective desperation.
:You feel this as less of a star vehicle?
A.M.:In a sense but in good ways.
This show is still about her, but its not a belting show anymore.
And Audra seems a more generous and modest performer than her predecessors.
:Well, that was not in any way the intent.
What fascinated me about the book is how everybody is part of this drive that this woman had.
Appendix3:ACoda
A.M.:Rose is a director.
Do you relate to her?
[Wolfe laughs at the thought.]
A.M.:Was there a part of you that wanted to be in front, as Rose does?
:[Laughs again] I was an actor in college, but I have control issues.
A.M.:Its a matter of temperament, isnt it?
Im an editor mostly.
And I find most editors are control freaks at heart.
I went,Thats not how an actor thinks, George.Everything was leading me in the direction ofdirection.
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