Finnegan's break

MAMA KNOWS Finnegan tackles the mother of all musical roles.

For the record, Rebecca Finnegan is 38. It normally wouldn't be worth mentioning, but anybody who's ever seen or heard the husky-voiced actress with the sly, scribbled line of a smile has inevitably left the theater wondering, "How old is she?" In the right light, it seems like this deft performer was born 40.

"I'm finally growing into my age," Finnegan says. Having played countless roles considerably beyond her own years—including parts created by nonspring chickens Angela Lansbury and Elaine Stritch—she's gradually moving from playing real dames to being one.

Still, the role she's taking on this fall would make even the brassiest of actresses take pause: Mama Rose in Porchlight Music Theatre's production of Gypsy. Infamously played by Ethel Merman—the American musical theater's greatest battle-ax—the fictionalized portrait of the tacky, ruthless stage mother of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee can be a mine field for even the most consummate performer.

Finnegan, a seasoned Chicago chanteuse who's received plenty of gaga, New York–style raves, acknowledges the legacy of the role with great respect, but also a level-headed sensibility. "Any role Ethel Merman ever played is an Ethel Merman role," Finnegan says. "She had a scorched-earth quality. There wasn't a tree or bush left standing when she was done. But she wasn't so much an actress. This is the first time I've ever played a character who was a real person. I think that demands a lot of respect, so that's a good place for me to start."

For a musical-theater actress, Finnegan is something of an antidiva. She only owns showtune CDs for shows she's had to learn ("I just can't listen to Lea DeLaria sing stuff from The Music Man," she says dryly). Her idols include Glenda Jackson, the mostly forgotten British powerhouse actress of the '70s, and Georgia Gibbs, the mostly unknown white pop vocalist who sang R&B songs in the early '50s.

But Finnegan's biggest anomaly is her fringe cred. During her six years in New York in the '90s, she was one half of the New Wondertwins, a team which, among other things, hosted PS 122's Avant-Garde-A-Rama. With her pal Susan Blackwell, Finnegan pushed plenty of weirdo boundaries.

"We used to eat food out of each other's mouths," Finnegan recalls. "She would put cereal and milk into my mouth with a cut-up banana and then she'd eat it with a spoon."

That's our kind of leading lady.

Porchlight's Gypsy begins at the Theatre Building September 9.