Star of 'Gypsy' ain't no shrinking violet

By Elysa Gardner
USA Today

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If you go ... "Gypsy," starring Bernadette Peters Shubert Theater, 225 W. 44th, New York City Mondays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Tickets, $61.25 to $101.25 through Telecharge, (212) 239-6200 or www.telecharge.com; $6 service charge per ticket, plus a $2.50 handling fee per order. Tickets available online at wide variety of discounts (do a Google search on "Gypsy" Broadway tickets).

"Then everybody was happy to report my age, over and over,"

Peters recalls. 'Well, you know, she is 55.'"

Sipping tea in her dressing room, the actress certainly looks and acts a good deal younger. Clad in a fitted black shirt and matching slacks that show off her slim but curvy figure, she nestles on a sofa, periodically brushing back the long mop of sunny curls she has maintained for decades.

Actually, Peters' age-defying allure is part of what intrigued "Gypsy" librettist Arthur Laurents and Sam Mendes, the Oscar-winning young stage and screen director ("American Beauty," "Road to Perdition") at the helm of this revival. Now she and the production are in the running for tonight's Tony Awards.

"Arthur and Sam wanted to reinterpret the role," Peters explains. She adds that Rose Hovick, the real-life stage mom her character is based on, "was only, like, 23 when she went off with her kids. And her daughter June Havoc told me that she was a man trap. She used her feminine wiles to get what she wanted."

Peters acknowledges that her reading of the role took some developing. "It didn't start out being quite as flirtatious. Arthur came in two or three times during previews, and Sam took a lot of his suggestions."

Laurents himself says he was drawn to Peters for more than just her sensuality. "Bernadette is a wonderful character actress, but she has always been pigeonholed as this cute little blond darling. I think there's much more to her than that."

Laurents adds that Ethel Merman, who introduced the lead role in "Gypsy" and is still regarded by many as the quintessential Rose, "was, for all her glorious voice, scarcely a layered actress.

"Bernadette is different from any of her predecessors, in part because of her innate niceness. I've worked with a lot of stars, and Bernadette is the least starry of them. That comes through, so that even when Rose does terrible things, you believe she really doesn't understand she's doing them. It humanizes the monster, makes her seem more vulnerable."

Peters agrees that Rose's vulnerability is a crucial element. "In the true story, I think her mother deserted Rose and her father and sisters. She would make things for women — clothes, jewels, silk undies — then go off and sell them. Her mother was supposed to have been there for her, but she wasn't around."

Tackling Rose over the course of a year is also bound to "sharpen my acting skills," Peters says — and expand her options.