Mainly on Directing by Arthur Laurents (read more books .TXT) 📕

a star. I had worked with many stars; stars didn't interest me. Artists interested me, and she was one of the few artists in musical theatre. When she was the artist, I loved working with her; it excited me, it inspired me, it got cylinders firing that hadn't fired in years. This was why Tom wanted me to do Gypsy with her. Behind her demands, one—that there be no opening night on Broadway— exposed the fear behind almost all: the New York Times. She felt the Times had never really liked her, she was sure it never would; she didn't want to experience that pain again. She wouldn't, I said. No? No. Why was I so sure? Because I was sure I knew how to get the Times to change its mind about her.

Patti LuPone is not very trusting, but she trusted me. She believed I could make the Times change its opinion of her. Why she did, I have no idea. It may have helped when I told her it had been my goal that she fulfill her potential and admitted I'd failed.

“Not this time,” I said.

At that moment, we were sitting at our table in the window, which was apart from the other diners, and the rain outside was coming down so hard we couldn't see or be seen through it. The privacy made us feel as though we were in what used to be called a “love nest.” We both relaxed, and I stopped worrying about the diva. She was gone.

The first mistake at City Center that had to be corrected had been mine. Her wig was unattractive, and since there hadn't been time to make a new one, I had asked her to wear her own hair. Without hesitation: “Okay.” The result was she looked like Patti LuPone, familiar star, not Rose, stage mother from hell. A big mistake. I admitted it was mine and apologized. A wig this time. The suggestion made her as happy as a child and receptive to what was next:

The Jocko scene is really a prologue to the play whose first scene and song in the kitchen either shoot Rose out into orbit or start her out on a wrong foot from which she can only partly recover, no matter how great her “Rose's Turn” is. At City Center, she had started off on the wrong foot. Patti LuPone knows how to deliver a song, and her audience goes wild at the first high note. The screaming and shouting made it easy for me to pretend all was fine and dandy—but it wasn't.

That summary of the situation didn't throw her; it wasn't entirely news. Over the months since City Center, she herself had figured there was something wrong in the beginning; she even knew it was the way she was doing “Some People.” But what was the right way? How should she do it? With Rose-like energy, yes, fine, sure; but where would the energy come from? Not anger. She didn't want to play an angry Rose all night long. Nor did I want her to. Granted, anger was always raging underneath, but it had to be kept there except at chosen moments—as when June leaves and the boys think the act is washed up.

A director should never bring up a problem without being sure of the answer. If not anger, then what was the source of the energy needed?

“Joy.”

That caught her; I explained. The world can be content to sit on its ass, but not Rose. Rose wants to travel in her mother's footsteps: go places, do things, get herself noticed. She's on a high when she brings her kids back home to the kitchen. Not angry at Jocko, she's finished with him, happy because she's moving on as directed by one of her dreams—a new act for her beloved Baby June. They're going to get out of Seattle and conquer the world via the Orpheum Circuit. This Rose is a dynamo who's taking life by the tail and laughs.

Patti latched on. Her Rose was going to be fun.

Her second big song, “Everything's Coming Up Roses,” also had to be rethought and redone, from the first line of the speech leading into it. She had started out racing through that speech, through the song itself, slowing down only for the coda, where she used all the vocal power she had and finished to cheers as the first-act curtain came down. As Rose herself says, “If you have a good, strong finish, they'll forgive you for anything.”

Not everybody. Barbara Cook, an old friend who arguably knows more about singing theatre songs than anyone else, had seen Gypsy at City Center. She too felt Patti had a potential she hadn't yet fulfilled.

“Why do you think that is, Barbara?”

“She goes too fast.”

Validation from Barbara Cook. Did I need it? Who doesn't have insecurity? Recently, I told Patti she was racing and rattling again.

She grinned. “I've been told that my whole career.”

The grin was a happy one because Patti is an actress who always wants her director, if she trusts him—if she doesn't, he's her nanny—to come back to her dressing room and give her notes.

“The crazy thing is, I don't know I'm rattling. I have to be told.” The next performance, the rattling was gone. She was exhilarated: slowing down had helped her find a new moment in the scene. She loves finding new moments.

That's how it works when the theatre is in yesteryear hands: during the run of a show, the director checks the performance regularly and the actor is still at work exploring the role.

With “Roses,” Patti knew the reason she was racing was that she was unsure what Rose was feeling and where she was heading. Even with her racing, the notes she hit were full-throated and glorious and the curtain came down to insanely thunderous applause. Who could ask for more? Well, I was now, and now I had to break down the speech and the song