Episode 868: Don’t Call Me Daughter

On the Overthinking It Podcast, we tackle Broadway’s latest and history’s greatest productions of the legendary mother-daughter musical Gypsy.

by Matthew Wrather
February 24th, 2025

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The gang takes this show all the way to Broadway, with Matt Belinkie, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matt Wrather celebrating Audra McDonald’s tour de force as Mama Rose with a look through the many adaptations and themes of Gypsy: A Musical Fable, by Arthur Laurents, Jule Style and Stephen Sondheim, based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee. Is it, as some critics claim, among the greatest American book musicals ever made? What would that even mean were it to be true? What does it have to do with King Lear? How does the fictionalization of its true story deal with reality vs. fantasy vs. the human condition? We discuss a paradox at the heart of many of the truly great theatrical parts: when they are played by the greatest actors in the greatest ways, do they ever really truly fall apart, or plunge from the heights into desperate ruin? What sort of dignity and sympathy does the ultimate fictionalized stage mom engender that may or may not be due to her historical antecedent? Who did it how, and how did it best? And where did Belinkie get a half-bottle of mead on a Tuesday? Everything’s comin’ up Otis!