Small venue; great show
I'm at the matinee performance of Gypsy at the Mill at Sonning.
As I have noted before, the stage at The Mill is tiny, and although this has been extended for this production by a slight thrust (losing about 15 seats) it’s still tiny.
The audience are necessarily on top of you, which requires far greater skill, when you are playing to the whites of your audiences’ eyes. And even greater skill when you are under-study for the (missing) lead actress. So all credit to Laura Tyrer for taking the lead part of Rose, and doing it seamlessly. I in no way felt short changed here.
Overall this was an excellent production – the stage is too small for the number of parts, so almost everyone doubles. To put on a full musical here is always a challenge, but one regularly risen to and exceeded. And the paucity of space is made up for by the skill of the actors.
I have seen Imelda Staunton in the Mother Rose role – and she was great, but I’m not sure this whole production wasn’t comparable – somehow the challenges of the Mill as a venue echo the challenges of Rose and her family to escape poverty.
The great numbers are given full wellie; I have perhaps just two quibbles (1) and typically (vide Cabaret) the poor performances the actors are meant to be giving as vaudevillians are just too polished – even with the (intentional) terrible choreography they just aren’t bad enough, but (2) Gypsy Rose’s first essay at burlesque is perhaps too tentative – I’m not sure she’d have been asked back! The later ‘shows’ evidence far more clearly her skill at not disrobing!
It’s running till 15th July (if you can stand the traffic to get there!)