“I Became A Mother Without Ever Having Sex.  I Was Sixteen.  My Sister Was Older Than Me, And She

i suffer a phobia called hope by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat tr. Fady Joudah

Holy shit.

Don’t I Get a Dream for Myself ? – Bernadette Peters and the 'Gypsy' Saga

Gypsy. It’s perhaps the most daunting of all of the projects related to Bernadette Peters to try to grapple with and discuss. It’s also perhaps the most significant.

For someone notoriously guarded of her privacy and personal life, careful with her words, and selective of the questions she answers, the narrative around this show provides some of the most meaningful insights it is possible to derive in relation to Bernadette herself. The show’s ability to do this is unique, through the way it eerily parallels her own life and spans a large range in time from both Bernadette Peters the Broadway Legend, right back to where it all began with Bernadette Lazzara, the young Italian girl put into showbusiness by her mother.

The most logical place to start is at the very beginning – it is a very good place to start, after all.

(Though no one tell Gypsy this, if the fierce two-way battle with The Sound of Music at the 1960 Tony Awards is anything to be remembered. Anyway, I digress…)

Gypsy: A Musical Fable with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents, burst into the world and onto the New York stage in May of 1959. After closing on Broadway in March 1961, Ethel Merman as the world’s original Mama Rose herself led the first national tour off almost immediately around the country. Just a few months later, a second national touring company was formed, starring Mitzi Green and then Mary McCarty as Rose, to cover more cities than the original. It is here that Bernadette comes in.

A 13-year-old Bernadette Peters found herself part of this show in her “first professional” on-the-road production, travelling across the country with her older sister, “Donna (who was also in the show), and their mother (who wasn’t)”.

The tour played through cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, New Haven, Baltimore and Las Vegas before closing in Ohio in 1962. Somewhat uncannily, its September 1961 opening night in Detroit’s Schubert Theatre even returns matters full circle to the 2003 revival and New York’s own Schubert Theatre.

Indeed this bus-and-truck tour was somewhat of a turning point for Bernadette. She’d later remember, “I mostly thought of performing as a hobby until I went on the road with Gypsy”.

But while this production seminally marked a notable moment for the young actress as well as the point where her long and consequential involvement with Gypsy begins, it’s important to recognise she was very much not yet the star of the show and then only a small part of a larger whole.

Bernadette was with the troupe as a member of the ensemble. She took on different positions in the company through the period of nearly a year that the show ran for, including billing as ‘Thelma’ (one of the Hollywood Blondes), ‘Hawaiian Girl’, and additional understudy credits for Agnes and Dainty June.

The above photo shows Bernadette (left) with another member of the ensemble (Sharon McCartin) backstage at the Chicago Opera House as one of the stops along the tour. Her comment on the stage of the Chicago theatre – “I’d never seen anything so big in my life!” – undeniably conveys how her experiences were new and appreciably daunting.

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“I was the product of an affair.  My father had sex with my mother once, and she hadn’t even told him about the pregnancy.  So he never knew I existed.  I was an only child.  I was desperate to connect with my identity.  But I had no way of finding him because my mother remembered his name incorrectly.  It wasn’t until I became an adult that I was finally able to track him down.  The first time we met, he sat in a chair, pulled out a cigar, and said: ‘I was expecting you to be a boy.’  It turns out that he’d had a son while he was in college, and he’d given that child up for adoption.  Somewhere out there, I had a brother.  I grabbed a napkin and wrote down all the information my father could remember.  But it wasn’t enough.  I couldn’t locate my brother.  Soon I got busy with my family and my mind moved on to other things.  Then two years ago I was on Ancestry.com, and I got a ping.  It wasn’t like: ‘Oh, here’s your brother.’  But it was a match of some sort.  And I’m really good at investigating that stuff, so I found him on Facebook and sent him a message.  After we confirmed things with a DNA test, Eric and I hit the ground running.  We call each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister.’  We’ve visited each other’s families.  We look alike.  We think alike.  I’ve shared my poetry with him.  He shares his music with me.  We’re both divorced, and middle-aged, and experiencing similar things.  So there’s so much to talk about.  We have these text conversations that last all morning.  I’m not that same teenage girl anymore—desperate for connection.  I don’t have a void that I’m trying to fill.  But he’s just been such a nice addition to my life.  I love having a brother.” #quarantinestories

Mike Nichols and Elaine May photographed in a bowling alley in New York City, 1961

“It was my decision to leave. There were too many problems. She hadn’t kissed me in years. We’d argue over every little thing. Our son was grown and I just didn’t see a reason to stay. So I came home from work one day, packed up my things, and left. I’ve been staying with my sister ever since. It’s been a tough two years. I’ve tried to reach out but she isn’t talking to me anymore. My son isn’t speaking to me either. They want nothing to do with me. I biked over here for Father’s Day. I was going to knock on their door but I changed my mind. I decided to just let them be. I wish I’d never left. Even though we were always fighting, it still felt like I had a home.”

QUICK RANDOM BREAKDOWN

MARS PC PLUTO CONJ. ASC SAGITTARIUS

Ego has been boosted today

SAGITTARIUS RISING

- by first glance people might find your legs/thighs/butt sexy

- exuberant and sunny disposition that people find attractive (girl next door type)

- big dazzling smile/playful smirk

- playful and teasing when first meeting people (especially people your attracted to)

PLUTO CONJ. ASC

- sexy, deep, alluring stare

- when first meeting people you have an noticeable intense presence (especially to people who are attracted to you)

- rbf

- dominating or you just simply demand respect in your glance and how you present yourself

- bratty

PLUTO 12H

- being private about your sexual experiences/sexuality

- people might be curious as to what you’re like in bed

- dark secret sexual fantasies

- very passionate behind closed doors

- potential imposters syndrome when it comes to how you preform and how you appear sexually

And yes this is my placement in my chart 💋

- ⚜️💫⚜️

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No Justice, No Peace.  Quote from Emiliano Zapata

Art by Liberal Jane

メAstrology indicaters of attracting jealousyメ

Pluto in 1st/5th/6th/7th/10th.

Pluto-asc/mc.

Scorpio rising/mc.

Personal planets in Scorpio/8th.

Pluto aspect 1st/10th house ruler.

Pluto aspect personal planets.

Sun in 1st/10th.

Leo rising/mc.

Personal planets in Leo/5th

Sun being prominent.

Sun-asc/mc/ruler of asc/mc.

Venus in 1st/7th/10th.

Venus-asc/mc/personal planets.

Venus being prominent .

Lilith in 1st/6th/7th/10th.

Lilith -asc/mc/personal planets.

Lilith in Leo/Scorpio/Aquarius.

Gregory Peck as Joe Bradley Roman Holiday, 1953 Dir. William Wyler