I had tickets to see the revival of Carousel on Broadway back in, I think, 1994 that featured Audra Macdonald as Carrie Pepperidge. Simone, Chris, and I had so enjoyed our New York adventure in seeing Sondheim and Lapine’s Passion a few months earlier that I ordered us tickets for what sounded like a terrific production.
And then I came down with the mother of all colds, and Simone couldn’t make it at the last minute either, leaving Chris to scramble to find a couple of her friends to take our tickets. Of course, they thoroughly enjoyed the performance.
And for some reason I’ve never made it to New York to see any of MacDonald’s other star turns on Broadway since then. Stupid me.
Which brings me to the new revival of Gypsy with MacDonald playing the mother of all stage mommas, Rose Evangeline Hovick, the role that capped Ethel Merman’s long career and has been played by many illustrious musical stars since then, each one bringing her own personal take to the part.
The New Yorker has a podcast and in the latest episode David Remnick interviews MacDonald about tackling Rose.
McDonald has won six Tonys for her acting, in both plays and musicals. In the repertoire of musicals, race in casting is still very much an issue, and one columnist criticized her portrayal of Rose because of her race. “I have dealt with this my entire career,” McDonald tells Michael Schulman, recalling her breakout performance, in “Carousel.” Some audiences “were upset with me that I was playing Carrie, saying, ‘She wouldn’t have been Black.’ There’s a man who comes down from Heaven with a star in his hand!” In a wide-ranging interview onstage at The New Yorker Festival, McDonald discusses how when she was a child theatre was initially intended to be a type of therapy for her, and the roles her parents wouldn’t let her take. “Gypsy” is currently in previews on Broadway.
The columnist who criticized her, by the way, is John McWhorter. Years ago I happened to mention him once, and ever since then my sister has referred to him as “that guy that I like”. But the truth of the matter is that ever since then, practically every time McWhorter opens his mouth or pens an article he makes a colossal ass of himself. I stopped “liking him” well over a decade ago. Anyway, when David Remnick asks Audra MacDonald about McWhorter’s column about her, she makes quick work of him with a short comment.
(By the way, McWhorter writes for, where else, the New York Times, which seems to be making it its mission to sweep up all the idiots to write for them. But I digress.)
I wanted to link to The New Yorker podcast site, but if you go there, they immediately pop up one of those maddening ads that won’t go away to try to get you to subscribe. So instead, here is a link to the Apple podcast for the episode.
Audra MacDonald on Stephen Sondheim
And here is the Overcast link to the episode. One or the other should get you to the podcast.