GREY GARDENS
GREY GARDENS, Squabbalogic at the Reginald Theatre, the Seymour, 20 November-12 December 2015. Photography by Michael Francis: above - Maggie Blinco and Beth Daly; right: Caitlin Berry and Beth Daly.
Grey Gardens was the rambling clapboard (weatherboard) summer home in East Hampton where the euphemistically described “eccentric socialites” – Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale aka Big Edie and Little Edie – lived for most of their joint adult lives.
Grey Gardens was also the title of what has become a famous and now classic documentary about the two, made by the Maysles brothers David and Albert in 1975, and subsequently a stage musical whose book is based almost verbatim on what the mother and daughter said during their endless bickering in the film.
Because the documentary and its imagery are so vividly embedded in popular culture, Big Edie and Little Edie are as familiar to many as their niece and cousin Jackie Kennedy Onassis, so filling their roles is even trickier than usual. Director and producer Jay James-Moody has exceeded all possible expectations in casting Maggie Blinco and Beth Daly respectively and the rest of the production falls into place behind them.
Aside from the look-alike element, both Blinco and Daly inhabit the skins and psyches of the constantly-warring mother and daughter and – remarkably – make them human. This is no easy task as the two Edies were monstrous in their self absorption, ingrained sense of privilege and wild selfishness. Remarkable performances from both women are sustained throughout.
Born into what passes for East Coast aristocracy, the Bouvier lineage – supposedly French but largely mythical – could best be described as “nouveau riche” – but badly pronounced. They were of an era where “socialite” and “wife” were dream occupations for women. Big Edie made both, Little Edie did not. They were no ordinary socialites however, as both had aspirations to stage, screen and stardom and in this instance, neither made it.
The stage musical – book by Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife, see review below), music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie – occupies the same territory as the Maysles documentary but begins with Big Edie in her social hellion heyday (played by Beth Daly) as she torments her daughter (excellent Caitlin Berry) by taking over her party and – wide-eyed and innocent – putting paid to any chance at romance for the young woman with an almost-engagement to Joe Kennedy Jnr (Simon McLachlan who also doubles down the track as young Jerry, Big Edie's teenage helper).
At the party young Jackie (Kelly Callaghan or Sian Fuller) and her younger sister Lee (Sienna Arnold or Jenna Keenan) who were later to be Kennedy Onassis and Princess Radziwill, are merrily part of the uneasy landscape of the Beale summer compound. It’s a peculiarly and instantly recognisable American world in which wealth and crassness sit side by side and often collide: a milieu where Big Edie’s camp piano-playing hanger-on Gould (insouciant Blake Erickson) is as unremarked as the black family retainer. But while Gould is despised in the nicest possible way, there is nothing to blink at where the butler is concerned, even when it becomes an inter-generational service of father to son (Timothy Springs as Brooks Jnr and Snr, who somehow make handing over and taking back the telephone receiver seem perfectly dignified and normal).
The production also captures the unique world of the early 20th century Hamptons – where a 27-room mansion was known as a cottage and in most instances was occupied only for the summer. The two-tier staging encapsulates in fleetingly lit visual vignettes the reality of the ageing of Grey Gardens. There are the rickety wooden stairs, the faded blue striped wallpaper, an attic room stuffed with memorabilia; the unsavoury bedroom that becomes the living space for the two has shudder-making twin beds, a small fridge, a transistor radio, a record player and a hotplate on the bedside table. At one point I found myself scratching my ankle, convinced of a flea bite – Grey Gardens was cat- and flea-infested in its later stages – that’s how convincing is Simon Greer’s design and Benjamin Brockman’s lighting.
It must also be said that costume designer Brendan Hay must have spent as much time absorbing the Beales in their film as the principals: the ability of Maggie Blinco and Beth Daly to channel Big and Little Edie has a lot to do with their clothes.
Musically and lyrically, Grey Gardens somehow takes on and authentically reproduces the quirky but melancholy remembrance of times past; it’s not like any musical you’ve heard before. Musical director/conductor/keyboard player Hayden Barltrop and sound designer Jessica James-Moody do a magnificent job with the radio-miked performers and the band (on the upper level).
Grey Gardens is at once discordant and gentle, clever and simple. Like the film it lets its subjects tell their own story with little apparent judgement: mother and daughter snipe and acid-attack each other sufficiently to make up for that. It’s also funny, intelligent and out of the ordinary.
Some on opening night seemed a bit puzzled by its subtle and intricate picture of a lost world and it might help if you’re familiar with the Maysles film, or that bit of American history. Nevertheless, Grey Gardens stands on its own musical and dramatic feet as an unusual, poignant and eye-opening entertainment.
When, towards the end, Little Edie – with inevitable interruptions from her mother – sings “Another Winter In A Summer Town” (about her wretched loneliness and discontent at being stuck in the foggy, dank chill of the Hamptons when everybody else has gone back to the city) it crystalises everything that was overwhelmingly sad and overwhelmingly entitled about the two women. Do see it: Squabbalogic has done it again. Minister Fifield – this company deserves your cash.
