Patti Lupone lands back on Broadway

The fourth incarnation of “Gypsy” opens Thursday.

NEW YORK (AP) — When Patti LuPone was in her early teens, she appeared in a local Long Island production of “Gypsy,” put on by what she says was “a group of kids that got together in the summertime. ... It was just kids who loved musical theater.”

LuPone played Louise, the ugly duckling daughter who grows up to become that classy swan of a stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee. Even then the committed professional, she threw herself into the role — and the stripping.

“I actually Krazy Glued my belly button shut because I put a jewel in there,” she says. “I went, ‘How am I going to keep it in there? A little Krazy Glue.’ [The next day] I woke up, and my belly button was stuck together. It got terribly infected.”

Such are the memories of her first stage experience with the remarkable Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents musical that is now having its fourth Broadway revival since first arriving there in May 1959 with Ethel Merman as its star. It opens Thursday

Madame Rose, the ultimate stage mother who pushes and pulls daughters Louise and June into show biz, was a role many think the intensely theatrical LuPone was born to play. After all, she was Broadway’s original “Evita,” London’s Fantine in “Les Miserables” and Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard,” Reno Sweeney in the Lincoln Center Theater reworking of “Anything Goes” and, most recently, Mrs. Lovett in the 2005 Broadway revival of “Sweeney Todd.”

Among those intrigued by the idea was Tom Hatcher, who, for 52 years was Laurents’ partner.

“He [Tom] shared every aspect of my life,” says Laurents, who wrote the book for the show. “And when the whole idea of doing ‘Gypsy’ with Patti came up — and this was a couple of months before Tom died [in October 2006] — he said: ‘You should direct her in it.”’

So Laurents, at age 90, accepted the offer. He led a critically acclaimed, three-week engagement last summer at City Center. Now, he’s helmed the production at the St. James Theatre where LuPone is holding forth with most of the City Center cast including Boyd Gaines as Rose’s ever-loyal, sweet-tempered beau, Herbie, and Laura Benanti as Louise.

“You know what’s interesting?” LuPone wonders during an interview before an afternoon rehearsal. “We’re really dealing with the book scenes. When Arthur and I talked the very first time about this, he said he wanted to cast actors. And as a result, the thing that is equally as important as the music are the book scenes.”

LuPone sits in a tiny office in a 42nd Street studio. She’s dressed entirely in black — stylish yet casual and ready to rehearse.

“‘Gypsy’ is a play,” she explains. “All musicals should be plays with music. They should all have as strong a book. The information in it is succinct, precise.”

According to Laurents, one of the reasons director and star get along so well is that they both love to rehearse.

The show is “about the need for recognition, which is a need for love, and it’s very clear in this production,” Laurents says. “And I directed this unlike I’ve directed any other musical. ... We spent an awful lot of time sitting around the table and examining literally every line in the book and in the lyrics.

“I did a totally new ‘Rose’s Turn’ (the show’s big finale) for Patti than was done at City Center. I didn’t feel it was right for her. Whoever plays Rose determines the tone of the production. And it had to be for Patti — what Patti is and what Patti does.”

LuPone has a superb voice and is a superb actress, says the director, known for his no-nonsense, direct manner. “That’s a combination you don’t find [too often],” he says. “Merman was ... you heard that voice and you were blown away, but she really couldn’t act.”

LuPone grew up listening to Merman’s cast recording and always has loved the music. “Anything Ethel did was like ... you were thrown against the back wall, just listening to her,” the performer says. “She was incredible.”

Yet except for her own teenage revival and watching another high school production, LuPone has never seen “Gypsy” on stage, although she does love the Rosalind Russell-Natalie Wood movie. And she did tackle the role of Rose for the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Ill., in 2006 during a vacation from “Sweeney Todd.”