‘Gypsy’ Dressed Skimpily, but Cast Shows Off

Unlike that other late-1950s Broadway masterpiece, “West Side Story,” you can do “Gypsy” without a set. Or, at least, without much of what might pass for a set. The proof is at the Yorba Linda Forum Theatre, where Yorba Linda Civic Light Opera is putting on an actor-based “Gyspy” rather than a production-based one.

Of course, the ideal is a balance, and when the show’s book author, Arthur Laurents, staged his brilliant revival a few years ago starring Tyne Daly as Mama Rose, the musical felt overwhelmingly big and intimate at the same time. It’s what puts “Gypsy” into a tiny, extraordinary class of musicals, along with the best of Stephen Sondheim (who wrote “Gypsy’s” funny, emotional lyrics).

With “Gypsy,” if you have to go without something, better it’s the production values than the actors. The story of Mama Rose’s dogged, nearly mad determination to make her child actors into stars while traveling the downhill slide of the vaudeville circuit is still the best backstage tale Broadway has ever conjured. Rose’s “Sing it, Louise!” is still the clarion call of stage mothers and show-biz dreams, and as Mama, Ann Peck sings it.

While June (Charne Felthous) is Rose’s prized daughter, with other daughter Louise (Sherrie Fleming-Chrisman) as loyal sidekick and wallflower, it is Louise who grows up to become Gypsy Rose Lee, the stripper who never took it all off.

June escapes when she sees the vaudeville circuit--and their silly act with cows and stars and stripes--going into the toilet, but Louise stays. Laurents’ genius was dramatizing how the loyalty turns both tragic and triumphant.

You need real actors for this, and director Darren Levens has them. Peck’s Rose is a broad-shouldered, hands-on-the-hips tough customer, drawing us in charismatically yet unafraid to show the stage mother’s self-centered drive.

Crucially, Peck nails every key song along Rose’s dramatic trajectory--from her emblematic “Some People” to “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” to “Rose’s Turn.” If she vocally clips the ends of tunes and keeps them short of being show-stoppers, she has an Ethel Merman-like brassiness that fills the room.

She is strongly supported by Felthous as an exuberant-turned-bitter June and Danny Michaels as a warm, deeply human Herbie, who helps Rose’s family but whom she never marries. Herbie can often be the lost man--nice, loyal, then gone--but Michaels makes every moment count, so when his temper finally explodes, we notice.

The weak link is Fleming-Chrisman’s Louise, who can’t pull off the show’s trick of having the girl transform into the international star stripper. Her loveliest moments are with Felthous on “If Mama Were Married.” That’s when she’s Louise. But as Gypsy Rose Lee, when she’s telling her mother to get out of her business, Fleming-Chrisman swallows lines.

It’s the only time in this low-budget affair--that uses some charmingly low-budget sets by designer Ryan Holihan--that the acting doesn’t carry the show. Not even a tinny, haphazard band led by music director Joshua Carr can get this cast down. All the members sing out, in a musical so infectiously superb that they probably can’t help it.

* “Gypsy,” Yorba Linda Forum Theatre, 4175 Fairmont Blvd. Tonight, 8. Sunday, 3 p.m. Ends Sunday. $8-$15. (714) 779-1932. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

Ann Peck: Mama Rose

Sherrie Fleming-Chrisman: Louise

Charne Felthous: June

Danny Michaels: Herbie

Charlie Brady: Tulsa

Stephanie Brooks: Mazeppa

Dawn Vasco: Tessie Tura

Melisa Halfman: Electra

A Yorba Linda Civic Light Opera production. Book by Arthur Laurents. Music by Jule Styne. Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Directed by Darren Levens. Music director: Joshua Carr. Set: Ryan Holihan. Choreography: Tod Kubo. Costumes: Sharell Martin.