Grey Gardens Reviews- Page 2

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:31pm

"...that doesn't take away from the brilliance of Ebersole's performance."

WBAF, I agree 100%.

[jv92]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:48pm

I agree 98% with Brantley. I think that the first act, while not as strong as the second, is a bit better than he made it out to be.
I'm surprised the brilliant lyrics and music weren't singled out though.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:49pm

USA Today gives it three-and-a-half stars:

"It's hardly shocking that this slice of cinéma vérité, with its colorful characters and camp value, would strike someone as a great idea for a contemporary musical. What's surprising, and refreshing, are the ingenuity and sheer heart informing the new off-Broadway transfer Grey Gardens, which opened Thursday at the Walter Kerr Theatre.

________________________________________________________________

These portraits never devolve into caricatures, thanks to Michael Greif's sprightly, sensitive direction and a pair of superb performances — or a trio, actually. Christine Ebersole plays Edith in Act 1 and Edie in Act 2, and infuses both roles with a profound poignancy that complements her comic prowess.

Ebersole also sings gorgeously, and composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie have provided her with some of the most tuneful and moving songs to grace an original musical in years. Mary Louise Wilson, who adds more hilarity and heartbreak as the geriatric Edith, delivers winningly wry, catchy numbers.

The supporting cast adds to a production that, for all its drollness, transcends the kitschiness that's prominent on Broadway's musical-comedy menu. Dig in and enjoy."


http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2006-11-02-review-grey-gardens_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA

[jv92]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:51pm

You know, I was just thinking about Clive "Crusty Old Man" Barnes' review and realized how much he's going to dislike it. He dislikes pastiche. Even smart pastiche like Grey Gardens. I'd be very surprised if he gives over two and a half stars.
Updated On: 11/2/06 at 09:51 PM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:53pm

Variety is Positive:

"As "Little" Edie Beale observes in "Grey Gardens," "It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present." When this emotionally trenchant musical premiered to wide praise Off Broadway last season, one criticism was that past and present were too separate. While the show's creative team has made extensive changes in the move to Broadway, its most illuminating work has been to provide deepened context for this spellbinding account of fallen American royalty, connecting the dots in the subjects' slippage from high society to its forlorn fringes.
The show's most buzzed-about aspect has been star Christine Ebersole in a staggering dual-role performance sure to become a new benchmark for musical-theater excellence. Scaling heights of droll hilarity only to plumb searing emotional depths, capturing Edie's physical mannerisms and Long Island drawl with uncanny exactitude and finding poignant universality in the most bizarre of eccentrics, this miraculous turn deserves every superlative thrown its way.

But in Michael Greif's fine production, "Grey Gardens" is much more than a tour-de-force performance.

Broadway has been flooded with screen-to-stage adaptations in recent years, with more to come this season. While most shows take a primarily illustrative approach as they translate well-known characters and situations from one medium to the next, Doug Wright's work adapting David and Albert Maysles' cult 1975 documentary is far more probing and interpretive -- even more so now than when the show played its sellout extended run at Playwrights Horizons last spring.

In less adventurous hands, "Grey Gardens" might merely have been a quirky musical about crazy cat ladies -- a singing, dancing slice of Robert Aldrich-style modern gothic. But Wright and his collaborators Scott Frankel (music) and Michael Korie (lyrics) have taken their cue from the Maysles brothers in portraying their multifaceted subjects with depth and dignity. Their show is a haunting account of lives derailed, a textured depiction of the warring, often simultaneous desires to wound and heal that characterize mother-daughter relationships, and a witty celebration of two defiantly maverick personalities.

________________________________________________________________

However, the high points remain unchallenged: Ebersole's "Revolutionary Costume" and beautiful act-one closer "Will You?"; Wilson's "Jerry Likes My Corn," a seemingly whimsical song that spins the most unlikely snatch of dialogue into a complex piece of character- and conflict-building; Ebersole's schizoid "Around the World," which lurches grippingly between bitter accusation and the sad imprisonment of memory; and her heartbreaking closing number, "Another Winter in a Summer Town." Performed on the first press night by Ebersole with tears streaming down her face, that song now segues into a superbly reworked final scene of piercing melancholy.

In a Broadway arena that can be unaccommodating for "serious" musicals, "Grey Gardens" is as boldly odd, original and beguiling as its subjects."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117932025.html?categoryid=1265&cs=1

[Fabrizio2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:54pm

I think it's safe to say that Grey Gardens is a hit with the critics.

I am 110% pleased with Brantley's review.

[All_For_Laura]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:59pm

Thrilled with Brantley's review! Just great for such a great show!

[Ciaron McCarthy]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:01pm

I am so happy for Christine! Tony number 2 coming right up!

[jv92]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:02pm

Barnes won't like it. I think he's the only one worth worrying about. He hates pastiche and he dislikes anything remotely bold (for example- Company, Follies, The Light in the Piazza).


And it does look like a second Tony is on the way for Ebersole. The last time I remember a leading lady getting a review where she was mentioned in almost every paragraph (and possitively at that) was for Victoria Clark's performance in Piazza. Updated On: 11/2/06 at 10:02 PM

[Fabrizio2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:02pm

Totally agree.

The show it's performers, and the tech crew were ON TOP even in the second preview (when I saw it). This is such an amazing show, and I'm so happy to see it prevail.


da da da da da da

[Phantom2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:09pm

"The second act of “Grey Gardens” hews closely to the documentary, as Ms. Ebersole and Ms. Wilson re-create squabbles and reminiscences enacted by their real-life prototypes, occasionally joined by Jerry, the sweet-natured young neighborhood slacker who drops by with groceries (Mr. Cavenaugh again, and first-rate)."

Ah, looks like Mr. Brantley likes Mr. Cavenaugh!

[maybethistime]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:11pm

Ol' Ben FINALLY got something right!

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:12pm

From the Variety Review:

"What the first act does exceptionally well now is sketch in the subtly stifling conditions against which these women rebelled."

So very true. I hadn't thought about that until now. It gives a level of depth to the first act that was lacking before. Well done, Doug Wright.

Updated On: 11/2/06 at 10:12 PM

[Fabrizio2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:15pm

This is the best birthday ever.


Because Grey Gardens got good reviews.


People were saying that it wasn't going to get good reviews because of the lack of an intimate feel that the smaller theatre at Playwright Horizons supplied...but it seems as Brantley liked the Walter Kerr.


This is great. I couldn't be happier.

[FoscasBohemianDream]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:18pm

It's nice to see some critics recognizing Erin Davie's work as well.
I am still reluctant to say that Ebersole will win the Tony this season, I rather wait till The Apple Tree and 110 in the Shade open.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:18pm

"Watching this performance is the best argument I can think of for the survival of the American musical."

There's your big pull-quote.

Not that I doubted it, but Ebersole can start clearing space on her mantle for Tony #2.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:31pm

Theatremania is Mostly Positive:

"Other people bickering can often be simultaneously hilarious and devastating, which is why the sizzlingest pair on Broadway right now are Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson. They're the heart, soul and guts of Grey Gardens, the Doug Wright-Michael Korie-Scott Frankel adaptation of and elaboration on the 1975 documentary about recluses Edith Beale and daughter Little Edie, which was enough of a succes d'estime at Playwrights Horizons last season for the producers to risk a Broadway transfer.

For those who haven't seen or heard about the film, this eccentric mother-daughter combo -- who were cousins of Jacqueline Kennedy -- were lifted to silver-screen posterity while living with their memories and innumerable cats in East Hampton obliviousness in a rundown 28-room mansion. Three decades later, the Beales now serve as the real-life figures for these seasoned stage veterans to attack with relish. Indeed, as the season progresses, there's likely to be no one available to best Ebersole for the Tony Award.

In the first act, which has been wholly invented by the show's creators, she's giddily imperious as Edith, a woman intent on appropriating the engagement party she's throwing for her debutante daughter (played by the polished Erin Davie, one of two new cast members) and fiancé Joseph Kennedy, Jr. (the suave Matt Cavenaugh). Ebersole's uncompromising portrait of misguided sophistication is that much more effective when in Act II, which is based directly on the film, she reappears as Little Edie, scuffing around Allen Moyer's deliberately seen-better-days set in the wardrobe that William Ivey Long modeled on the actual Edie's ludicrous fashion notion. Speaking in the demotic accent Edie adopted as she aged and singing with loopy distraction, Ebersole gives not just a remarkable impersonation, but the performance of her lifetime. Which is saying something, because whatever she does, she's always on target.

The same can be said of Mary Louise Wilson, who has jettisoned the lacquered black coiffeur she wore a decade ago as Diana Vreeland (in Full Gallop) for Big Edie's straggly white fashion-don't do. Sounding like a needle scratching across an old 78, Wilson whines demandingly and relents pleadingly as she heats soup by her bedside and drifts between infantilizing and praising her compliant off-spring. Anyone who's seen the 1975 flick will also recognize Wilson's take as an uncannily impressive impersonation.

______________________________________________________________


Conversely, the second act -- which actually could stand alone and probably ought to -- currently seems less compelling than it did before, because director Michael Greif has Ebersole and Wilson underline what was already fully realized before. But this is only a minor quibble. Moreover, the Korie-Frankel songs for Act II seem to have been written by a different team altogether -- a quirky duo who especially make hay with Ebersole's "Revolutionary Costume for Today" and "Around the World" and Wilson's "Jerry Likes My Corn."

Decades ago, Variety editor Abel Green warned against fiddling with a hit. Since Grey Gardens was only an almost hit when it bowed, the creative team did need to apply additional elbow grease. Their alterations, however, aren't sufficient to make the property noticeably more or less than it was: a musical to be seen for the brilliant, unflinching second-act performances given by Ebersole and Wilson.



http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/9387

[wickedfan]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:36pm

"Polished Erin Davie", probably the best notice she's gotten out of all of these. MOst of them just don't comment on her performance.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:39pm

What I found most impressive was the intimacy with which Ebersole delivered Edie in Act II...even in a Broadway theatre. And I do think Wilson is brilliant in the role.

I don't agree that the show is all about Edith now. The codependency of the mother-daughter relationship is more defined than it was at Playwright's, and that, to me, is the focus of the show. The sense of helplessness and hopelessness both women harbor is also more clearly conveyed.

Tonys for both Ebersole and Wilson!

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:50pm

yeah, I want an award for Mary Louise Wilson!!!!!

[wickedfan]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:58pm

It's about time she gets what she deserves!

[fflagg]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 11:15pm

Who gives a sh*t about the Talkin Broadway review? Not one internet theater reviewer has any clout. They are all either bitter, gay theater queens or silver-haired closeted theater queens.

It is still the Times that puts asses in the seat along with good old word of mouth. I wish the Times devoted more space to Wilson, and Act One and the overall score deserve more praise.

Too bad no one could get Barbra and her fat butt to see the show while she was in town. I would love to hear her sing "Another Winter in a Summer Town."

She was probably too bushed.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 11:18pm

Not one internet theater reviewer has any clout. They are all either bitter, gay theater queens or silver-haired closeted theater queens.

Dislike gay people much?

(P.S. I thought the Talkin Broadway review was well thought out and extremely well written. No word on the writer's orientation though.)

Updated On: 11/2/06 at 11:18 PM

[Eileen2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 11:26pm

Jeffrey Lyons just gave his review on WNBC and it was very enthusiastic.

[fflagg]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 11:30pm

Did it ever cross your brain that I am gay, too?

I think you may be too gay; stop listening to Rufus Wainwright for 5 minutes and get the wax out of your ears. Try some Nine Inch Nails. :)