Gypsy the Musical

Gypsy

Love is a very valuable thing that is many times overlooked. Love can come in a variety of shapes and sizes. It can appear in the form of an everlasting love a mother feels toward her children, a romantic love between two people, a feeling of attachment toward a job, or a connection between a person and a concrete or abstract object. In Gypsy, it is visible how difficult, or even impossible, it can be at times to juggle these diverse types of love and assign one priority over the rest.

In Gypsy, Rose is a character who is flowing with love. She loves her babies, her job, the challenge of reaching stardom, and even, Chinese food. Her expression of this love makes her look like an angry, crazy, pushy, and demanding lady upon first glance. Once one looks deeper, it is evident that she only acts like a "monster" out of love. For example, her babies are clearly the most important people in her life. She pampers them, gives them anything she can, and is really a very caring mother toward them. Originally, she does everything in her power to make Baby June a star. Once June becomes overwhelmed by her mother and leaves, Rose is determined to make Louise into a star. This mother's love for her children is overpowering throughout the musical. It is so strong that it constantly drives her daughters away from her. Before June runs away, Louise and June sing the song "If Momma was Married" demonstrating how this overpowering love can be too much. It forces June to run away and Louise to attempt to rid her life of her mother. On the surface, Rose may seem like a psychotic, overprotective mother, but in reality she has so much love for her daughters that she would literally do anything for them.

Rose's second love comes off more as an obsession. She seems possessed by the idea of making her daughters into stars. That is her job. At the end of the show, Rose sings the song "Rose's Turn". This is a great example of how she was pretty much living her dreams through her daughters, which makes it difficult to determine whether she loves her daughters more than the idea of creating them into stars. In fact, these two loves overlap throughout the entire show. In the scene where Louise basically tells her mother she does not need her help anymore, Rose does not know how to respond to this news. The reason this is so difficult for Rose to cope with is because Louise took away the two most important things in Rose's

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