A Mama Rose is a Mama Rose... Leigh Barrett on Sondheim, Motherhood, and Reprising Her Role in 'Gypsy'

Leigh Barrett is no stranger to the work of Stephen Sondheim, having appeared in everything from "Follies" and "Sweeney Todd" to "Company," "Into the Woods," "Side by Side by Sondheim," and "Sondheim on Sondheim."

Not that Barrett hasn't done plenty of other work - "Ragtime," "City of Angels," "Closer Than Ever," "Grey Gardens," "Carousel," "The Sound of Music," and even such modern fare as "Car Talk: The Musical" -- not to mention uproarious favorites like ""The Drowsy Chaperone" and "The Great American Trailer Park Musical." Even this extensive listing hardly scratches the surface of Barrett's full resume, which grows longer when one takes into account her nearly decade-long directorial career.

Barrett has appeared many times at the Lyric Stage, where she is about to return for a Rachel Bertone-helmed production of "Gypsy," the much-loved stage musical based on the memoirs of American stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, which were published only two years before the play's premiere in 1959. Though Sondheim wrote the lyrics, the show's music was composed by Jule Styne at the insistence of original star Ethel Merman, whose idea it was to adapt Gypsy Rose Lee's memoir into a musical in the first place.

Gypsy Rose Lee was a stage name for Rose Louise Hovick, who, as a child, was forced -- along with her older sister, June - to perform by their twice-divorced single mother, Rose Hovick. Mrs. Hovick was such a formidable stage mother that, according to Wikipedia, she resorted to creating fake birth certificates for her daughters as a way of evading laws relating to child labor.

Though the young Louise was not as gifted at song and dance as June, when she tried her hand at stripping - and how she came to that is a mini-saga in itself - she discovered a rare talent for engaging the audience, all without removing much at all in the way of clothing. Her ability to engage audiences served her just as well in her work as a labor activist as it did on the burlesque stage. Gypsy Lee Rose's career included starring roles in five films (though she was no better as a movie actress than she was on stage); she also went on to author two mystery novels, one of which was made into a Barbara Stanwyck movie.

But it was as a stripper that Gypsy Lee was most famous, to the point that Rodgers and Hart tipped their hat to her in their play "Pal Joey" - a play, incidentally, in which Leigh Barrett starred in the role of Vera at the Stoneham Theater in 2005. In another twist, Barrett - who plays Gypsy Lee's mother, Mama Rose -- performed that same role at Stoneham Theatre when that company produced "Gypsy" in 2007.

A decade later, not only is Barrett set to reprise the role of Mama Rose - albeit at another theater and in a different production - but she is also slated to revive a different role from 2007, being slated to join forces with Will McGarrahan and director Spiro Veloudos as the three bring Stephen Temperley's Florence Foster Jenkins-centric musical "Souvenir" back to the Lyric Stage for a revival in October.

EDGE had the opportunity to chat with Barrett about Mama Rose, motherhood, and - of course - the work of Stephen Sondheim.

EDGE: You've done quite a lot of Sondheim before, including a couple of turns in Sondheim work right on the Lyric Stage. Do you have a personal fondness for Sondheim's stuff? Or is it more a matter of this being the work that's come your way?

Leigh Barrett: I think it's a little bit of both. I definitely feel called to sing Sondheim. I love that he writes for the singing after - it's about story and communicating something more than just what's on the page I'm interested in that - that's always intriguing to me. I've certainly done a lot of Sondheim on the Lyric stage, that's for sure.

EDGE: Is there a story to how you came to be cast as Mama Rose for this production?

Leigh Barrett: The only story is that I auditioned and was called back several times, and booked the job.

EDGE: You've played the role of Mama Rose before, at Stoneham Theater - I wondered whether that would have factored into your getting the role at the Lyric.

Leigh Barrett: No, actually. In fact, they had forgotten that I had done it.

[Laughter]

EDGE: Would you say that your earlier work on the role has informed what you're doing now?

Leigh Barrett: Honestly, that was ten years ago; I don't know about you, but I don't have a great memory. The good thing is that where ordinarily that might drive me nuts, it has allowed me to come at it again from a fresh perspective. I certainly remember the overview of the show, but I don't remember specifics. I didn't really remember the script as well as I might have liked, so I had to go back and re-explore. I would have done that anyway, even if it was a year ago because I would want to come at it from a different perspective. I was ten years younger [when I played the role before]; my experience as a person is more - it's richer now than it was ten years ago. I feel like she is resonating so much more deeply for me now than back then.

EDGE: And you are a mother yourself.

Leigh Barrett: I am, yeah. I'm not a Rose. I keep checking in with my kids to make sure that I'm not that. But hey, all moms are protective and - somebody said something about, "The word 'mother' is part of the word 'smother.' "

[Laughter]

So I'm trying not to smother my children.

EDGE: Mama Rose is the ultimate stage mother. She's seen as trying to live her own dreams of stardom through her daughters - but as you approach the character, do you find there are there other things that motivate her?

Leigh Barrett: A hundred percent! Absolutely! I think that is definitely one aspect of her journey - to fulfill unfulfilled dreams for herself through her children. But also, her own abandonment issues inform her parenting. I really believe that her ultimate drive is protecting her children and being with her children, not abandoning them the way her mother abandoned her. That can become very stifling - her fear, her desperation and not wanting to be alone, and not wanting to do what her mother did to her; ultimately, she does end up doing to her own children what her mother did to her. Not by deserting them physically, but by not allowing them to live their own lives.

EDGE: Mama Rose is a picaresque figure but also a compelling one. How do you see her in contrast to other larger than life roles you've played, for example, Little Edie in "Grey Gardens?"

Leigh Barrett: I feel like one skill that I have is understanding these flawed and misunderstood and tragic characters. I just understand them, and I feel them so deeply that I feel compelled to give them a voice in some way. I think that if they could have been understood, things would have been different for them.

EDGE: The music is a big part of that. Music can help communicate what's going on inside a character more effectively than words alone.

Leigh Barrett: Oh, absolutely, yes.

EDGE "Gypsy" includes some of musical theater's best-loved songs. What are your own favorites from the show? What personal resonance do they carry for you?

Leigh Barrett: I'm a Gemini so that sort of changes daily for me, but I love the smaller moments for her, the musically small moments like "Small World" and "You'll Never Get Away from Me." I think it's so amazing - great, great music, and there's so much to mine out of all of it. Every time you come at them you find more, a new meaning, a different meaning, And Rachel is brilliant at helping us discover those moments, and so are our scene partners, of course. I love singing all of it. I identify with Rose so much more now as I stare down the [prospect] of sending both my children off to college in a week. Say what you will about Rose and her mothering, no mother wants to feel like their job is done or they're obsolete, or they don't have a purpose anymore. Finding the balance in that transition is difficult - it's a difficult one to navigate.

EDGE My mother - her name was also Rose, by the way! - always used to say to me, "I don't care how old you get, I'm still your mother." That must be a universal sense that mothers have - and fathers, too.

Leigh Barrett: Yeah - I mean, I look at the way my own mom [was] and my own transition in growing up, and how I might have thought about my parents. I used to think, "Aw, mom, you don't have to wake me up any more! I'm an adult. I can do it on my own." And I find [with] my own kids it's a hard [thing] - you're done this for eighteen or twenty-two years, and you can't just shut it off one day because they're ready to go do something else. It's really hard.

EDGE: Sure... you mentioned Rachel Bertone a moment ago, who is both directing and also choreographing the show. Have you worked with Rachel before?

Leigh Barrett: I have. This is my second time with her as a director, She directed me in Carousel" last summer at the Reagle Music Theater, and that was fantastic; she's such a great collaborator. And then I've worked with her as a choreographer on several different projects. Her approach to movement has always had a story drive to it; it always comes out of a need to communicate and express something and complete a story. That is evident in her direction, as well. It carries right over.

EDGE: I love how Boston's theater community is both small enough and extensive enough that you can really see and appreciate how talented people come together in different configurations to create new and interesting things. It's like a painter's palette or a chef's creativity with flavors.

Leigh Barrett: Oh, yeah. That's one of the best things, and it's a kind of a bittersweet thing, too; you look at the cast, and you think, "I'll work with this person and this person and this person again, but we won't be in this constellation again."

EDGE: Being a director in your own right, are you happy to let others take the reins and focus on acting, or do you sometimes have to bite your tongue when a director has a different vision for the material than you might?

Leigh Barrett: [Laughing] I always jokingly say that every actor is a backseat director. And you can say that about any career - people think they can do it better, or at least as well. As an actor, I'm always thinking about what I'm doing and how I'm doing it, why I'm doing it, where am I going, where have I been. All of those things. And those are the things that directors do as well, so it's kind of a perfect marriage when you move into directing. But I've been directing a lot this summer, so I do have to take a breath and go, "Oh, that's not my job anymore. I can just focus on what I'm doing and where I'm going; I don't have to look at the big, big, big picture."

EDGE: Speaking of your scene mates, Kirsten Salpini and Kira Troilo have been cast as your daughters, Louise and June, respectively. How's it been working with them? Does any mother-daughter chemistry spill over with them outside of rehearsals?

Leigh Barrett: [Laughing] Oh, man! I'm a natural nurturer in that way, and so I can't help doing that a little bit. But we haven't had all that much time. There isn't a lot of scene work with June - with Kira - so I mostly talk with her outside of rehearsal. Rose doesn't have a lot of down time, and when I'm down, I've literally got my blinders on, staring at my script, because there's just so much to remember.

EDGE: When it comes to your research for the part, have you looked at Gypsy Rose Lee's memoirs, or watched the 1962 film version directed by Mervyn LeRoy? Or maybe the TV movie version from 1993?

Leigh Barrett: I think I saw the Bette Midler [television] remake [from 1993], ages and ages ago. And I did watch the Rosalind Russell [film version from 1962], the first time I did [the role]. I've never actually seen "Gyspy" live on stage - other than doing it. I've seen snippets of other people [in the role]. Dan and Rachel and I have had long conversations about this. And I've played iconic roles before they were identified with the actors that have played them - "Oh, Merman! Oh, Lupone!" Everybody has their favorite Rose. I'm not interested in being anybody else. We all talk about how we have to find it with our own voice. I hope that people are all right with that!

EDGE You make an interesting point in having been in the play now twice, but not having seen it. Acting in a play is a much different experience than being in the audience and beholding it. Have you had the experience of seeing a play and then acting in it later, or acting in a play and then seeing a different production later on? If you have, it must have given you a whole different perspective.

Leigh Barrett: Yeah - sure! I think it can't help but make you go, "Oh! Well, that's an interesting way to do that," or "I wouldn't have thought about saying it that way." I don't know if you saw Emma Thompson as Mrs. Lovett in "Sweeney Todd" at Lincoln Center? I did, and I was on the edge of my seat. I was blown away. What I loved so much about it was that it was fresh, it was new because she's not so overly familiar with how we all hear it. We're all so used to hearing a certain way, that she could just approach it however the heck she wanted to. It was just so eye-opening to me. That's how I'm approaching this.

EDGE: That's the charm of theater. If we didn't want it to be different all the time, we could stick with movies.

Leigh Barrett: Absolutely, just go to Redbox or Netflix if you want to see the same thing over and over again. Because even with the same show and cast, it's slightly different every night - totally different! And that's exciting. It's nerve-wracking - but it's exciting.

EDGE: "Gypsy" has a big gay following. Do you have a sense why gay audiences love the show so much?

Leigh Barrett: You know, I really don't know. Is it the mother thing? That's part of it, I think. Or the glamorization of Gypsy Rose Lee in Act II? Is it that? I don't know. It taps into iconic actresses with a big gay following - Patti Lupone and Bernadette Peters and Ethel Merman.

EDGE: What other projects have you got lined up for acting and directing in the upcoming season?

Leigh Barrett: I just directed a production of "Addams Family," and that was super cool. And right after "Gypsy" closes, I'll be in a revival of "Souvenir." That's coming up here at the Lyric Stage. We did that [in 2007] with Spiro [Veloudos directing] and Will McGarrahan [as Cosme]. That opens the middle of October.

EDGE: I am really looking forward to the coming season.

Leigh Barrett: Yeah! It looks good all around!

"Gypsy" plays at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston from Sept. 1 - Oct. 8. For tickets and more information, please go to http://www.lyricstage.com/productions/production.cfm?ID=124