I saw the revival of Gypsy last night starring Bernadette Peters. I got my ticket for 50 bucks through the current Season of Savings promotion, which Broadway uses to lure people to the theaters during this, the slow time of the year.

Ever the theatrical optimist, I enjoyed the show. For one thing, Gypsy is one of the greatest American musicals. Bernadette Peters’s voice doesn’t quite fill the role of Mama Rose, but she acts the hell out of the part; you can feel her anguish at having failed to become the person she’s dreamed of being. She’s sexy, too. She looks great in her purple dress and 1920s haircut. The entire production looks great, actually. The minimal sets make for a sleek, colorful production. Most of the other actors play their parts well, although I preferred Jonathan Hadary’s Herbie and Crista Moore’s Louise back in 1989 over the current performances by John Dossett and Tammy Blanchard. For one thing, I wanted Tammy Blanchard to have a little more oomph in her final strip scene.

I was pleasantly surprised to recognize the actor who plays Tulsa, the character who sings, “All I Need is the Girl.” He’s David Burtka, and he’s totally cute, and I’ve seen him twice before. The first time I saw him was a couple of summers ago in Edward Albee’s The Play About the Baby, and he was stark naked part of the time. The second time I saw him was a couple of weeks later, when I realized I was standing next to him at Starlight, a gay bar in the East Village.

I wanted to say something like, “Hi! I’ve seen you naked,” but instead I didn’t speak to him.

Oh well.

I saw Jackie Hoffman perform her one-woman show on Monday night. She’s in the cast of Hairspray (which I still haven’t seen), and one of the themes of her routine on Monday was how much it sucks to be in a Broadway show. She touched on something that I can’t get out of my head: she says she enjoyed performing in Hairspray so much more back when it was still new and the theater was filled with gay men. Now that the show’s been running for more than a year, the audience is filled with tourists and families, who don’t get all the humor, and she can’t stand them. “Welcome to Irony Airlines,” she intoned. “We’ll soon be reaching our cruising altitude of THIRTY-THOUSAND FEET OVER YOUR HEAD.”

I’ve been feeling a little envious and inadequate since then. I still haven’t seen Hairspray, and if and when I finally see it, I might feel like I’ve missed the boat, that it’s just not “cool” or “in” anymore. I want to be one of those people whose finger is on the pulse of New York theater, who has subscriptions to Encores and the Roundabout and the Manhattan Theater Club and sees the hot new shows in previews. I’m not saying I want to turn all pompous and stuck-up and fabulous; I just want to know a whole lot more about musical theater than I currently know. I want to know people who can get me free tickets to stuff, and invite me to parties, and I want to be able to chat intelligently about obscure shows and composers and Off-Broadway plays and such.

Okay — my dad did give me two free tickets to Wonderful Town last weekend, which he got from one of his co-workers who couldn’t use them. So that’s a start. I took my friend Jere, because Matt had already seen it and was busy with work.

Anyway, I love learning, and I’ve been learning a lot about musical theater these last few months. So I guess I have nowhere to go but up.

Last night’s Iowa caucus results were, of course, surprising. I’ve never been good at political analysis, though, because I’m always wrong, as are most other people. I think that anyone who makes predictions or pronouncements about “what the caucus results mean” or whatnot is just succumbing to our very human need to make the unknowable knowable. Really, nobody knows what’s going to happen. Why bother guessing? This is why I don’t watch TV news — too many instapundits.

Because Edwards came in second place, however, I can now come out of the closet as an Edwards fan. I liked him a year ago, mainly because he was being touted as the savior of the Democratic Party. Then people stopped talking about him. I don’t hold strong enough positions on the issues to have a clear preference among the Democratic candidates — all I want is someone who can beat Bush. So my support is really soft; whoever is touted as the Next Big Thing seems to become my first choice (except for Dean, about whom I’ve always had some reservations). I think Edwards is refreshing and charismatic and can go the distance. I still like Clark a lot, although I’m wary. I think that Kerry, despite his military service, could be Dukakicized, and he’s still not all that charismatic, but hey — if he wins the nomination, I’ll vote for him. Lieberman, too. I’d much prefer any of them in the White House instead of W.

And that’s my talking-head bit for the day.

Meanwhile, here are some political news sites I’ve been checking out daily:

Political Wire
The New Republic Online Campaign Journal
Howard Kurtz’s Media Notes (Washington Post)
The Note (ABC News)
Campaign Desk (Columbia Journalism Review, criticism of media coverage)