Your reaction is likely to be complex and ongoing over several days' time. That's partly because works this great can be perceived from so many angles. In these cases, however, the pieces themselves change.
Gypsy couldn't possibly say the same things when led by a miniaturist like Peters in a role created by maximal-voiced Ethel Merman. And Redgrave, though one of the great actresses of our time, is a ghostly presence compared to the archetypal Katharine Hepburn, who in the 1962 film version has her character battling demons that have always won and always will. Previously inhabited by so-called sacred monsters of the stage, these roles are filled by actresses - both nominated for Tony Awards - who don't go for a mythic, Mount Rushmore-like presence. They seem as approachable as anybody in your yoga class.
Is this a problem, or an inevitability?
Not so long ago, high-profile revivals tried to be time-travel experiences, replicating the original sets and disinterring original cast members. Now, the pressure is on old works to reveal new things. Sometimes they are forced into it, with revised librettos and resequenced songs. Yet truly canonical works rewrite themselves by not changing a word or a note. History does that for them.
The context's the thing
Chicago, whose tale of murder and corruption was only a moderate success in the 1970s, became last year's movie triumph because it mirrored our world of Enron ethics. Though a flop in 1976, Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures, about the Americanization of Japan, is now the darling of the regional theater circuit. (Philadelphia's Arden Theater opens a production May 27.) The show is a hugely entertaining prism for parsing nationalism and cultural fundamentalism from many, many angles. And isn't that on everybody's mind?
