STAGE REVIEW : ‘Gypsy’: A Roaring Revival at Pavilion

Anyone who believes that a playwright should never stage his own work can sprint on down to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and look at “Gypsy.” To quote another good musical, it ain’t necessarily so.

Arthur Laurents, who staged this 30th anniversary edition, also wrote “Gypsy’s” book (suggested by Gypsy Rose Lee’s memoirs of life with mother Rose and sister June Havoc). Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics (wot lyrics) and Jule Styne the music (wot music). Those are the givens. But they don’t begin to describe the enduring power of the sum total.

Can a revival of a 30-year-old musical really be this rousing? Bet your sweet bangles it can.

What first hits us as we watch the show is this musical’s survivability--as astonishing as that of its central figure, Mama Rose, originally created by Ethel Merman. But whatever Merman brought to Rose by way of brass knuckles, grate and sheer belting power in 1959 has been replaced in 1989 by a more humanized unstoppable force: that of Tyne Daly.

The second thing that hits us is that it’s not just Daly. The supporting cast here is strong and astutely chosen, with particular emphasis on Jonathan Hadary’s mensch of a Herbie; Christen Tassin’s squealing, high-kicking, baton-twirling Baby June; Tracy Venner’s squealing high-kicking, baton-twirling grown-up June; and the serendipitous selection of Jana Robbins, Anna McNeeley and Barbara Erwin as those ineffable ripening graces of burlesque: the Misses Mazeppa, Electra and Tessie Tura.

Their moment to shine (“You Gotta Have a Gimmick”) has rarely been such a sweet poke in the ribs to the workers in the trenches. (The scene is studiously reproduced in “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” where, with young performers in the roles, it has all the punch and none of the valiance that it has here with women of the right age and unafraid to show it.)

You’d have to be from another planet to be unfamiliar with “Gypsy’s” hits: “Let Me Entertain You,” “Some People,” “Small World,” “Mr. Goldstone,” “Together”--to say nothing of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” and the deathless “Rose’s Turn.”

Not a loser among them and urgently done here. But the measure of this production’s success lies in its chemistry. If the performers are well chosen, they’re also lucidly directed by Laurents. The show’s psychological drive has never been clearer.

It starts with Daly, who well before the mega-success of “Cagney & Lacey,” had done her time in theater. We knew she had the humanity, but who knew she could sing?

Her Rose is astonishing: A whirlwind of single-minded energy focused on one thing: making her daughter--either one of them--a star. But there’s real love as well. A choking love, variously misguided, but never false or dishonorable. What we see is not just the quintessentially pushy stage mother, but a victim too--a woman helplessly trapped and blindly driven to claim for her daughters what she feels was denied to her.

By the time “Rose’s Turn” comes around, it’s Daly’s turn all the way--a tortured epiphany.

If the show can stand some adjustment it’s in the final scenes with Crista Moore as Louise. Moore is fine as the shy and recalcitrant daughter, filled with love-hate for the mother who always loved sister best, but she doesn’t quite manage a full bloom of self-affirmation as she turns into Gypsy Rose Lee. “The Strip” and the scenes that follow need a more gathering presence and pizazz.

The Jerome Robbins choreography has been nicely reconstituted throughout by Bonnie Walker. Theoni V. Aldredge’s costumes don’t dazzle, but they don’t stint. Kenneth Foy’s sets, framed in a gilt proscenium and aptly lit by Natasha Katz, are simple enough to tour but not cheap. (A lonely night-time railroad station scene suggests all the depth of an endless Midwestern plain with a single semaphore light in the distance.)

The production started in Chattanooga in May. When it leaves Costa Mesa (where it plays the Orange County Performing Arts Center July 18-29), it will wind its way to New York by the first week in November. For once, that sounds like a proper itinerary for a show that should get all the attention it deserves.

At the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; matinees Wednesday, Saturdays, Sundays at 2. Ends July 16. Tickets: $16-$37; (213) 480-3232 or (213) 972-7211.