Was Patti LuPone's Star Turn in Gypsy a Hit With Critics?

Tony winner Patti LuPone has finally tackled Mama Rose. LuPone, on leave from the Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, spent the weekend of August 12 in another Stephen Sondheim musical, starring in the Ravinia Festival's concert production of Gypsy. Did the critics think everything came up roses for Ms. LuPone?

Here's a sampling of what they had to say:

Charles Isherwood of The New York Times: "Even had she undertaken it in less lustrous circumstances, Ms. LuPone's reckoning with this formidable part would be a noteworthy theatrical event "the character she was born to play," declared the Ravinia Web site, not without reason. And with this sumptuous orchestra behind her, performing the ebullient score by Mr. Sondheim and Jule Styne for the first time, it naturally became a musical one, too. Neither of these essential participants disappointed. Ms. LuPone sang with exciting power and warmth, and the 47-piece orchestra played with a textural clarity that made you sit up and take notice, even during the underscoring between scenes…. Ms. LuPone conveyed, at various points, all the conflicting impulses of this loving but hurting, self-denying but selfish character: the hungry-eyed intensity of Rose's backstage vigils, the calculating mind behind the cajoling exterior, the bursts of spontaneous affection, the bewilderment as she is abandoned by everyone she loves. And just as she transformed the inelegant Mrs. Lovett into a persuasive seductress, Ms. LuPone made of Mama Rose a forcefully sexual woman."

Chris Jones of The Chicago Tribune: "LuPone most assuredly delivered. She is what you might call a classic Rose, with none of the eccentric or mannered flourishes of, say, a Bernadette Peters. Nor does LuPone have truck with revisionism. Her energy focused low in her stocky body, she merely sets her jaw and belts out the timeless subtextual pain behind Sondheim's lyrics of endless resilience. But LuPone also can suddenly lighten and finesse her upper register, letting the vulnerable notes of Jule Styne's intentionally misleading melodies float with dangerous dysfunction on the night air, just as the late, great composer surely would have wanted."

Hedy Weiss of The Chicago Sun-Times: "[LuPone] turned in a richly realistic yet red-hot performance…. The musical's deft mix of vaudeville, burlesque and old-fashioned family drama is an ideal Broadway blend, too. Add to this the presence of an onstage "pit band" in the form of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Sondheim aficionado Paul Gemignani conducting the score with tremendous speed and clarity, and a supporting cast that featured far more Chicago actors than usual, and you've got the makings of a terrific production full of deftly turned performances. Absolutely crucial to the mix here, too, was the work of director Lonny Price."