PTC's "Grey Gardens' (1st review)

In a decaying 28-room Easthampton mansion, surrounded by stray cats and the ghosts of their glittering past, a reclusive 80-year-old woman and her equally withdrawn 56-year-old daughter pass their days in bitter mutual recriminations over the opportunities they blew when they were doyennes of high society, with seemingly the whole world (and even the Kennedys) at their feet.

Like many children of the rich, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, "Little Edie," had everything money can buy but none of the essential commodities money can't buy: love, wisdom, patience and a strong sense of self-esteem. They seem the walking proof of Martin Luther's dictum: "Riches are the least worthy gifts which God can give men. Therefore, God commonly gives riches to foolish people, to whom he gives nothing else."

The fact that the Beale women were real people, and respectively aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis to boot, caused the tabloids of 1973 to wonder, "How could American royalty fall so far so fast?" (The tabloids missed a better story angle: Another collateral relative of the Beales was Emma Bouvier Drexel of Philadelphia, who steered her stepdaughter, Saint Katharine Drexel, firmly back within the folds of Catholicism whence Emma's husband had strayed.)

Remember Jimmy Carter's brother Billy?

Yet the Beales' downfall isn't as unusual as conventional tabloid wisdom believes. The notion that there are "good" and "bad" families was shattered by a recent study, which concluded that the personality variations within families, as each sibling stakes out his or her own niche, are greater than those between families. This theory explains why, say, the moderate soldier Dwight D. Eisenhower had one brother who was a liberal intellectual and another brother who was a right-wing John Bircher. It also explains why just about every U.S. president has some embarrassing oddball sibling (Billy Carter, say, or Roger Clinton). And of course it explains the eccentric Beale women of Grey Gardens.

Making a musical comedy out of such serious material requires courage and imagination, for which everyone involved deserves applause. Doug Wright's script shifts the action between the dismaying present of 1973 and the Beales' deceptively glamorous salad days of 1941, when the theatrical Edie fancied herself "an actress without a stage," Little Edie was courted by Joe Kennedy Jr., and all the visible trappings of success concealed the emptiness beneath (like the absence of strong male figures). Wright's dialogue is crisp throughout, and the songs by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie exude a sophisticated intelligence reminiscent of Noel Coward. At least in its first act, Grey Gardens is a delight to mind, eye and ear alike.

The daughter becomes her mother

The authors' work is especially well served in this production by David Zinn's elaborate revolving set (in which the mansion's walls serve alternately as palace, labyrinth and prison), skilful direction by Lisa Peterson, and performances by an entirely credible team of actors with first-rate singing voices. The show is driven on stage largely by the effervescent Hollis Resnik, who portrays the glamorous Big Edie of 1941 in the first act and then returns in the second act, 32 years later, as Little Edie— the daughter who has become her mother. But outstanding performances are also delivered by Kim Carson as the 24-year-old Little Edie of 1941 and by Todd Almond as George Gould Strong, the fey pianist, hanger-on and apparent gigolo who represents the crowd of users who exploited the Beales when they seemed to have everything.

There's only one problem with Grey Gardens, but it's a large one. Once Act I establishes the Beale women's pathetic 1973 situation and flashes back to 1941 to examine how its seeds were planted, the story has no place to go. Act II is simply an excruciatingly long epilogue, full of endless recriminations (and, to be sure, several memorable songs, like "I Ate the Cake I Had" and "Another Winter in a Summer Town").

Ultimately Grey Gardens is an empty play about empty lives. It suffers precisely from its protagonists' quandary: a lack of real drama. Like the old mansion in its heyday, it's an impressive package that falls apart if you probe its interiors too closely. But what a relief from the seemingly endless parade of musicals about putting on musicals. â—†


To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here.