Gypsy [1993 CBS Television Cast] in Bloomington, MN

Jule Styne
and
Stephen Sondheim
's score for
Gypsy
has had five major recordings: the 1959 original Broadway cast album starring
Ethel Merman
; the 1962 original motion picture
soundtrack
starring
Rosalind Russell
, partially dubbed by
Lisa Kirk
; the 1973 London cast album starring
Angela Lansbury
; the 1989 Broadway revival cast album starring
Tyne Daly
; and here, the 1993 television
Bette Midler
. The casting of
Midler
as
Rose
, the ultimate stage mother, seemed ideal; she is an accomplished actress with a theatrical background and a well-known singer with a feisty personality. The production made a point of sticking to the original show, and the supporting players,
Peter Riegert
,
Cynthia Gibb
, and
Jennifer Beck
(who actually got a fair amount of singing time, along with some others) were excellent. But any production of
stands or falls on the actress who plays
turned out to be able to handle some aspects of the part, but not all. As a
pop
singer, she was too accustomed to being ingratiating and sympathetic to be as much of a monster as
is supposed to be, and she didn't quite have the voice for the more demanding songs. On
"Small World,"
"You'll Never Get Away from Me,"
"Together, Wherever We Go,"
songs in which
is being as nice as possible,
was fine. But in the more confrontational numbers, such as
"Some People"
"Everything's Coming Up Roses,"
she didn't go far enough. You'd have thought that would make
's climactic nervous breakdown,
"Rose's Turn,"
beyond
, too, but actually she brought that off well, adapting the performance to the small screen. On the whole, then,
did a respectable job, but not the one she was capable of, if she had worked harder. As such, this
, while a vast improvement over the disastrous movie
, was on a par with the
revival, but not a patch on
's well-acted version or
's definitive interpretation. ~ William Ruhlmann