Grey Gardens (musical)
Grey Gardens is a musical with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, produced in 2006 and based on the 1975 documentary of the same title about the lives of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale ("Big Edie") and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale ("Little Edie") by Albert and David Maysles. The Beales were Jacqueline Kennedy's aunt and cousin, respectively. Set at Grey Gardens, the Bouviers' mansion in East Hampton, New York, the musical tracks the progression of the two women's lives from their original status as rich and socially polished aristocrats to their eventual largely isolated existence in a home overrun by cats and cited for repeated health code violations. However, its more central purpose is to untangle the complicated dynamics of their dysfunctional mother/daughter relationship.
Grey Gardens
2006 Off-Broadway
2006 Broadway
2011 Melbourne
2013 Seattle
2016 London
2016 Toronto
2016 Los Angeles
Storyline[edit]
The first act depicts the characters in their heyday and is a speculative take on what their lives might have been like when they were younger, when Little Edie was 24 and Big Edie 47. The second act is set 32 years later in 1973 at the decaying Grey Gardens estate and hews closely to the Maysles Brothers' documentary in its portrayal of them in their later years, when Little Edie is 56 and Big Edie is 79. While the first act is almost entirely fictional (the central event, the engagement between Little Edie and Joseph Kennedy, never happened), the second act takes much of its dialogue and action directly from the film. The same actress who plays Big Edie in the first act plays Little Edie in the second act.
Reception[edit]
The Broadway production was received enthusiastically by critics. Time magazine named Grey Gardens the best show to come out in 2006.[12] In reviewing the off-Broadway production, Ben Brantley, reviewing for The New York Times, wrote "A blend of gentle compassion and acute observation, Ms. Ebersole's performance is one of the most gorgeous ever to grace a musical." However, he also noted that the musical "tilts perilously toward cheap celebrity camp". With a "very long and finally tedious first act".[13] Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that the musical "brings to mind two phrases seldom linked nowadays: 'Broadway musical' and 'artistic integrity' the songs, with music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie, sustain a level of refined language and psychological detail as elevated as Stephen Sondheim's. The score is a meticulously fashioned piece of musical theater that gains in depth the more you listen to it."[14][15]
Recordings[edit]
The Off-Broadway cast album was released on August 22, 2006.[11]
The Original Broadway Cast album was released on March 27, 2007, through PS Classics.[11][16] It was nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.