As long as there have been child stars, there have been pushy parents living vicariously through them, a subject of cultural fascination from Judy Garland to Dance Moms. The devil works hard and Kris Jenner works harder, but no stage mom is quite in the league of Mama Rose, the relentless protagonist and handler of two performing daughters in Stephen Sondheim’s much-beloved musical Gypsy.
The mother of all stage mothers, based on the domineering matriarch in the burlesque icon Gypsy Rose Lee’s 1957 memoir, has earned her reputation as a destination for musical theater divas. The role is, as some have argued, Everest for a Broadway actor, pioneered by Ethel Merman in 1959 and since scaled by Angela Lansbury, Bette Midler, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and most recently Patti LuPone in the 2008 revival. LuPone’s brassy, torrential belt, which earned a Tony and is now part of the modern Broadway YouTube canon, looms large over the role. But from the minute Audra McDonald’s Rose appears in the latest revival, directed by George C Wolfe at the Majestic Theatre, she is a different flavor of unmissable. With a small dog, a threadbare purse and total impatience, blistering past manners and barking over a befuddled kiddie talent show director (Jacob Ming-Trent), McDonald’s Rose is a gale of tremulous desperation and vulturous ambition.
