'Sometimes a Single Word Is Enough to Open a Door'

How George C. Wolfein collaboration with Audra McDonald-subtly, indelibly reimagined musical theater's most domineering stage mother.

- ADAM MOSS

AUDRA MCDONALD WAS STANDING TO MY left in a long coat and leggings, a narcoleptic lapdog in her arms, but I didn't notice. There's nothing diva-y about her; nobody even glanced in her direction. It was 50 days before the opening of Gypsy, starring McDonald as the devouring stage mother Rose, and there was a lot to do. George C. Wolfe, the director, restless and elfin in a beanie and slipper shoes, sat on a chair in the 42nd Street rehearsal room, watching the busload of children in Gypsy, giggling and poking one another, come in from the hallway.

Every inch of the space was alive with activity: the actor playing Tulsa stretching alongside other dancers in the room next door; the three strippers from "You Gotta Get a Gimmick," the showstopping Act Two number, rehearsing their moves on the sidelines with the choreographer, Camille A. Brown, while the music director futzed with some orchestration in the corner. Eventually, the run-through began, playing out in ordinary fashion if you've seen the show as often as I have in its many iterations. We were watching the first ten minutes, in which Rose and her daughters are introduced at an audition for a kiddie vaudeville show. Rose is trying to foist Baby June and Louise on the host, which leads to a confrontation with Rose's father over the life she has forced on her children, culminating in Rose's first big anthem, "Some People." Wolfe sat on the floor, then leaped up; he was in constant motion. He worked out some blocking and exchanged a whispered word with McDonald. He talked to the actor playing Rose's father about what he might be feeling in the scene, which caused the actor to ratchet up his line-reading several notches. But it was all a familiar rendition of a musical that's been revived five times since it premiered nearly 66 years ago.

So why do it?