company or grey gardens?- Page 2
company or grey gardens?
shesamarshmallow
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/23/06
#26re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/18/07 at 11:59pmMy too favorite shows on Broadway! They'll be keeping Grey Gardens around until at least the Tony's (and longer, once Ebersole wins), so I'd go with Company, which is on shaky ground right now.
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#27re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 12:01am
Great, for Grey Gardens I paid full price for my horrible sixth row seat (it was all the way to the right and it was easy to miss some of the action going on stage left). I'll rush next time.
On topic: I saw Grey Gardens on a Friday, then Company on a Saturday. I had more fun at Company just because it's written as a musical comedy (even if it has sour undertones), Heather Laws alone almost made me pee my pants, and yes Raul Esparza's performance is great (though honestly I was far more impressed by Barbara Walsh's genius interpretation of Joanne and Heather Laws comedic skills during her major scene). Having said that, I disliked Doyle's direction and found Grey Gardens to be far more compelling. To me Company was too worry about sticking to a concept that can be rather limiting at times. Grey Gardens fully blossomed to me, it featured GREAT performances across the board from the little ladies who play Jackie and Lee to the marvelous Erin Davie to the future-legendary performance by Ms.Ebersole. It was one of the most thought-provoking, fascinating, well-written, and compelling pieces of theater I've seen in my young life.
If I had to pick, I'd do Grey Gardens, but I think both shows have their pros and cons. You should listen to both cast recordings, read some general plot descriptions, and then make an educated guess based on that. Any opinions that we might give you will obviously be biased.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
bwaygal1
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/5/07
#28re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 7:48amI'd say Grey Gardens without a doubt. I've returned SEVERAL times. It gets better each time. It seems as though Christine Ebersole is immersing herself into her roles a little more each time. (And I thought she was dead on the first time! As if it could get better. But it did.) I just saw it Sat. night from the front row and she gave the most passionate, beautiful performance I've seen. She broke down at the end of "Another Winter in a Summer Town". I, for one, think the score is terrific. It captures the characters' feelings perfectly and often with a gorgeous orchestration to accompany it. "Around the World" is my favorite song. However, I do like all of the music. Christine gives the best performance this 20-year theater veteran has EVER seen, male or female. Go see it just to see her transformation.
"A birdcage I plan to hang. I'll get to that someday. A birdcage for a bird who flew away...Around the world."
"Life is a cabaret old chum, only a cabaret old chum, and I love a cabaret!"-RIP Natasha Richardson-I was honored to have witnessed her performance as Sally Bowles.
#29re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 12:08pm
Company...
I'm going this weekend!
"Y'all have a GRAND day now"
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#30re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 12:39pm
If you want to see a gay person's view of str8 life, see Company 
#31re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 12:48pm
I absolutely can't answer this.
Both shows are wonderful. Raul's performance is breathtaking and no words can describe Christine's.
Company is a better show overall, but they both cancel eachother out with goods and bads.
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
To Kill A Mockingbird
To Kill A Mockingbird
#32re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 12:48pmI've seen both and enjoyed Grey Gardens much more than Company. I couldn't get into Company as much as I thought I would...it just didn't do much for me.
Happy...Everything!
Kaye Thompson
Nashvillian
Swing Joined: 2/15/07
#33re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 2:03pm
Saw them both on consecutive nights last month. I'd say, definitely Company. This production is sheer brilliance. As for Grey Gardens...sure, Christine Ebersole was great, but I found the show very dull (as did the fellow actually snoring out loud next to me). Nothing happens in GG! It makes Company look positively action-packed! GG might work better for those who have seen the original movie...but should that really be a requirement?
As for the actor/orchestra in Company being a "gimmick", there's a line in the show I couldn't believe when I heard it...did they add it for this production? It was something to the effect of: Married people aren't "marriage" just like musicians aren't "music". (Someone help me if I'm way off on that quote.) But there's a blueprint for the entire show concept right there!
#34re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 2:17pm
That line always makes me smile. It is so unintentionally fitting. And no, it's not exclusive to the revival. It's in the libretto.
Paul says: "Listen, Amy... married people are no more marriage than... oh... musicians are music..." and so on.
#35re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 2:17pmBoth productions have their merits, but don't pass up a chance to see Christine and Mary Louise!
"I'm like a helmet without a head" -
Nick Plasia
Stand-by Joined: 9/15/06
#36re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 3:24pm
From last week's NY TIMES:
"The songs from “Grey Gardens,” 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. “Grey Gardens” is an artfully skewed variation on a traditional musical that belongs to the line that connects Mr. Sondheim with Kurt Weill. The score is a meticulously fashioned piece of musical theater that gains in depth the more you listen to it. The songs expertly integrate recitative and speech into a seamless narrative flow that never loses its verbal acuity. Mr. Korie’s rhymes are all the more impressive for being at once original and unforced. At the same time, they are packed with specific historical references.
The first-act pastiche songs are much trickier than the amiable but shallow period glosses in a typical backward-looking score like that of “The Drowsy Chaperone.” “Hominy Grits,” a minstrel show number sung in vintage black dialect, wants to make you squirm even as you admire its gemlike craft.
In the second act the music for “Grey Gardens” curdles into a kind of off-kilter American Gothic style, as the walls close in around the characters and their cats, and their minds wander. Their self-delusion and competitive symbiosis are rendered with clinical insight in the creepy “Jerry Likes My Corn.” “Around the World,” a ditty sung by Little Edie while ruminating in an attic filled with mementos, sticks to your mind like flypaper.
To its enormous credit (and possible commercial detriment), “Grey Gardens” doesn’t soften its true story, adapted from the Maysles brothers’ documentary about the Beales. It is a portrait of decay whose songs artfully mimic that process until you are left aghast at the waste and sadness of it all; it leaves you no exit."
#37re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/19/07 at 11:59pm
Nashvillian...
It was my line when I was in Company....
"Married people are no more marriage, than musicians are music."
"Y'all have a GRAND day now"
CurtainPullDowner
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
#38re: company or grey gardens?
Posted: 2/20/07 at 12:05am
I agree with that article Nick.
If you look at any play or musical you will find some reference to music, that does not mean you should do a revival where the actors march around a square playing instruments, but in an insane asylum .... maybe.
I think Doyle went a step too far.
But I am glad the score and book are back on Broadway.
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