Tovah Feldshuh brings Madame Rose to Bristol Riverside Theatre

Broadway has Philadelphia to thank for Tovah Feldshuh.

The four-time Tony nominee, who will star as Madame Rose in Bristol Riverside Theatre's production of "Gypsy," has road-tested many of her Broadway successes in Philly before bringing them to the Great White Way. She has relied on this barometer since her breakout turn as the titular character in "Yentl" at the Walnut Street Theatre in 1975 (eight years before Barbra Streisand played the cross-dressing Yeshiva student on-screen).

"The city is hot with hot Italians. New York is hot with Italians and Jews. The temperatures are the same," Feldshuh said. "Boston has been much more Irish and Yankee. It has a different feel, more conservative audiences. But once you get old enough, people give you a standing ovation, no matter what."

Feldshuh will likely receive such a reception from Bristol audiences if only because Madame Rose is such a powerhouse role.

"Gypsy," loosely based on the memoirs of burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee, ostensibly centers on the main character as she transitions from reluctant vaudeville star to vibrant stripper. But the musical's tour de force has always been the role of Gypsy's mother, Madame Rose, who pushes her daughters (played by Amanda Rose and Brittney Lee Hamilton) into the spotlight.

Feldshuh says the role of Rose is for women what Shakespeare's Hamlet is for men: All musical theater actresses covet it, and some of the biggest names of the genre - from Ethel Merman to Patti LuPone and Bernadette Peters - have tackled this ultimate stage mother.

After Feldshuh did a sold-out, one-night performance at Bristol Riverside last April of "Golda's Balcony" - her popular, long-running one-woman show about Israel's first prime minister, Golda Meir - the theater told her they'd be happy to stage any play she'd want to star in. She immediately chose "Gypsy," whose Jule Styne/Stephen Sondheim score includes such classics as "Let Me Entertain You," "Some People," "Small World" and "You Gotta Have A Gimmick."

Feldshuh's never done the role, but her predecessors don't scare her. "There's more leeway here. I'm in Bristol and I can take chances," Feldshuh said. "We have a great advantage. We're not trying to redefine the musical but bring our own moment-to-moment reality."

Feldshuh's first goal was to make Rose more than just a caricature of the stage mother from hell. "We are going to do the best we can to tell the truth rather than be cardboard musical characters. I try to be a person up there with flesh and blood," Feldshuh said.

In Rose, Feldshuh sees an eternal optimist who props up those around her as they falter, a woman who loves her children so fiercely, she doesn't understand how that love is crushing them.

"Her moral barometer is off, but she doesn't understand that her intentions are in any way sinister," Feldshuh said. "She might step over a dead body to reach her goal, but she would just say, 'Well, he's already dead.' This is her immortality."

However Feldshuh views Rose, she has one goal: Give the audience something different. "I don't want to impress the audience, I want to move them," Feldshuh said.