Grey Gardens Reviews

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 6:35pm

Talkin Broadway is Mixed:

"Once upon a time, there lived a woman who was the toast of all those around her. Those closest to her considered her their greatest hope for a shining future, and encouraged as many as possible to fill her opulent home so she could beguile them with her beauty and grace. But no fawning admirers could disguise the truth that she was ultimately a daughter who could be cut down to size by her mother just when she most needed her support.

This is not the story of Edie Beale of the musical Grey Gardens, which has shakily made the improbable leap from Playwrights Horizons to Broadway's Walter Kerr. No, the charmed woman of the moment is Christine Ebersole, who's starring in it under the most fortuitous, unlikely, and difficult of circumstances: The show was brought to Broadway on the strength of her alone.

She made a splash unlike any in recent memory when the show opened this past spring: Some critics anointed her; others nearly deified her, all but proclaiming her performance unmatched in the annals of musical theatre. True, most everyone admitted the show itself was no timeless achievement, but what did that matter when there was Ebersole's magnificence in which to bask?

This production, directed by Michael Greif, might have been brought to Broadway to capitalize on Ebersole's once-in-a-career acclaim, but authors Scott Frankel (music), Michael Korie (lyrics), and Doug Wright (book) have worked tirelessly since Off-Broadway to improve it into a more worthy vehicle for its star. In rewriting scenes and replacing songs, they've succeeded in making Grey Gardens unquestionably tighter and more dramatically satisfying than it was when it first opened in March. But it has become so at the expense of Ebersole's luminescence and the electric theatricality it generated.
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The story is no longer merely about two zany, dysfunctional women. When Wilson sings "The Cake I Had" (she ate it, too) or "Jerry Likes My Corn" (about the young man, played by Cavenaugh, who completes her life in ways her adulterous husband couldn't), she draws us into Edith's agonized struggle, collapsing her dilapidated, 28-room prison into a captivating pinpoint. Edith's voice, wobbly and uncertain, possessing only a whisper of its former vibrancy, pierces the heart and reminds us that time can - and eventually will - rob us of everything.

Wilson's dazzling work as the grandest of fallen grande dames remains the true treasure of Grey Gardens, even richer and more rewarding now than it was Off-Broadway. The suave Stillman has transformed the brittle George into the first act's wisecracking spiritual center, Edith's true love and her crucial emotional anchor during her mounting crises. Their parting duet, the quiet, Coward-ish "Drift Away," is now the show's saddest and most uplifting number, and one of the few times Frankel and Korie's score unequivocally feels more like sophisticated, adult musical theatre than high-level Fringe Festival camp.

Stillman and Wilson, giving the production's most confident and Tony caliber-performances, aren't matched by most of their castmates. McMartin can't make his archetypal disapproving father figure into a real person any more than Cavenaugh can bring anything but a silly accent to the caddish, sketchily drawn Joe; Davie, though finding more hinges to loosen in young Edie than did her Off-Broadway predecessor Sara Gettelfinger, still never completely triumphs as a nervous breakdown in the making. If Wright's book now brings additional clarity and humanity to their first-act concerns, they all remain supporting players designed to dissolve into our memories as 1941 evaporates into history. (Their reappearances in bit parts in the weakest sections of Act II don't help.)
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But in a second act about Edith's fall from grace, Ebersole's personal journey as the show's star seems incomplete. With Edie disconnected from the primary story of Edith's decline, Ebersole's showpiece numbers - the ramblingly comic "The Revolutionary Costume for Today," about her unique fashion sense, and the patriotic, excrescent "The House We Live In" - no longer endear us to the actress channeling an eccentric soul, but distract us from the dissipating spirit Ebersole spent the first act making us care so much about. (A revised Act I opening, prominently featuring Wilson's crumbling Edith, further underscores this.)

The point is never made more succinctly than in "Another Winter in a Summer Town," Ebersole's haunting 11-o'clock number (and the show's best song) in which Edie finally arranges to escape her mother's enveloping shadow and fulfill what remains of her own destiny. When Edith cries out just as Edie steps outside, you can feel Edie's heart shatter as she realizes where her future unavoidably lies. But while Ebersole mesmerizes here, your eye can't help but drift to the woman abandoned 32 years earlier, and who might be again now. She means too much to you for you to allow Ebersole the final word.

While this is devastating to the show - no star vehicle can survive the loss of its star - it's as right and compelling as this musical gets. When the show was about Ebersole, it grabbed your soul; now that it's about Edith, it grabs your heart. If Grey Gardens can only do one, the latter is the correct choice, though one wishes this musical could - like the greatest shows in the canon - do both at the same time.



http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/GGardens.html

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 6:38pm

Now thats an interesting review.

[jv92]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 6:43pm

I hate Talkin' Broadway. The reviewers there never have anything nice to say.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 6:44pm

Yeah, but that review isn't overtly negative. Its a rather interesting analysis of the show, and probably makes some very interesting points (I havent seen this yet).

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 6:45pm

The thing is....the only review that matters less than Broadway.com is Talkin' Broadway. Take it with a complete grain of salt (though in retrospect its hard to disagree with him).

[Fabrizio2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 6:46pm

Oh, dear.

[FoscasBohemianDream]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 6:47pm

Though I slightly disagree with the review (I found Erin Davie quite captivating), it is very interesting especially with the kinds of discussions going on about Ebersole's chances at the Tony Awards.

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 6:47pm

da da da da da

[jewishboy]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 6:49pm

I do think his review is very thought provoking, but I too wish that he gave Erin Davie a better review.

[TomMonster]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:03pm

I was there Tues during one of the press previews. Some fun for me was watching Linda Winer (who looked great and sat close to me) crawling on her hands and feet to rescue the "freebie" pin that she dropped.

The show is in much better shape than it was Off-Broadway. It has more focus and dramatic tension. I didn't feel any loss in Christine's performance, but I can almost agree in the assessment that the show is more about Edith than Christine. However, I think is does succeed in giving us the best of those worlds.

I truly love this show, and many people I talked to afterwards felt the same. While carrying the playbill on the subway and the grocery store afterwards, at least 10 people came up to me telling me how much they loved this show.

I can't wait to read the other reviews. (Nervous...)

And MB--get thyself to this show!!! I can't wait to hear your insight on this...

PS: I saw Les Miz last night and NO ONE wanted to talk about it...!

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:05pm

Les Miz has a built in audience but DRV is horrible in it

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:05pm

I'm sure I'll see it next week when Im back in the city! I really can't wait.

[Phantom2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:08pm

How's Mr. Cavenaugh?

[Phantom2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:09pm

I got a little excited and double posted. OOPS.

Updated On: 11/2/06 at 07:09 PM

[jv92]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:13pm

The review isn't all that thought provoking. The guy's an idiot! He fails to recongnize anything as a good show. Although we'll never have a Golden Age, there have been very good, even great shows that he hasn't been all that possitive about.
The reviews are going to be bull****. I can tell. All the kudos is going to be taken away from Ebersole because they (the critics) won't want to overpraise her which is absolute baloney. She deserves all the praise.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:24pm

The AP is Positive:

"Let us again sing the praises of a genuine star turn - a performance so galvanizing that it jump-starts an entire production.

The performer in question is the astonishing Christine Ebersole, who in the course of two acts portrays a pair of unusual ladies - Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, "Little" Edie Beale, the eccentric aunt and the equally strange cousin of Jacqueline Onassis.

The musical is called "Grey Gardens," and Ebersole was cheered when the show opened last March at off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons. If anything, her work is even better at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre, where the production arrived Thursday. It's richer and deeper, layered with a heartbreaking sense of loss that could have been obscured by the comic, often hilariously loopy antics of these reclusive women.

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Now the act is tighter, more focused, with several numbers deleted and a couple new, marginally better ones added. In Act 1, Ebersole is the mother, a society lady with vocal aspirations and a penchant for dominating her daughter, played by the lovely Erin Davie, a new addition to the cast.

The household is abuzz at Edie's engagement to Joseph Kennedy Jr. (yes, those Kennedys), portrayed with earnest affability by Matt Cavenaugh. It's also being torn apart by the bickering between mother and daughter and the absence of a distant, errant Wall Street father.

Wright, author of the Tony-winning "I Am My Own Wife," nicely sets up the conflict between the two women, foreshadowing the collapse of their lives in the second act. After intermission, 30 years have gone by, with Edith, now played by Mary Louise Wilson, and "Little" Edie (Ebersole at her most triumphant), more dependent than ever on each other.

Wilson gives a masterful performance, too. She's a cranky, comic delight, able to hold her own with the formidable Ebersole, who pretty much wraps up the evening with her show-stopping number that opens Act 2.

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The score by Frankel and Korie then becomes more interesting, moving away from the pastiche numbers that fill the musical's first half. For example, there's the haunting "Another Winter in a Summer Town," as Edie recognizes time is passing and she is trapped by staying, season after season, with her mother.

Director Michael Greif has pruned "Grey Gardens" effectively, so the warfare between the two ladies is never far from the show's surface.





http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/gossip/15913819.htm

Updated On: 11/2/06 at 07:24 PM

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:46pm

im very pleased with the TALKIN BROADWAY piece, in that, as much as i love Ebersole, i feel that Wilson deserves heaps of praise & adoration as well!!

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:49pm

I agree. Wilson's performance was perfection.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:51pm

The normies review was posted. Apparently, the real Jackie O. comes back from the dead to appear in the show.

"The mother may have been demented....the daughter was a little manic depressive."

At least there's a good clipof the show.

http://www.broadway.com/gen/general.aspx?ci=539740





Updated On: 11/2/06 at 07:51 PM

[aspiringactress]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 7:52pm

Yes. I saw the documentary after the show, and didn't fully "get it" (but I thought I did) until then. BOTH of them are terryfyingly accurate. Perfect.

[BobbyRobbyBobbyBaby]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 8:14pm

Thanks Margo for posting those reviews. I don't agree with the Talkin' Broadway review. I think this is one of the best shows on Broadway in years. It may not be perfect, but it's closer than many that have come and gone. Christine is simply brilliant.

[i*heart*fame]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 8:27pm

My father jsut alerted me to the fact that the Times' review is now up.

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/theater/reviews/03gard.html?ei=5094&en=59cea26a0937a789&hp=&ex=1162530000&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1162517173-WyK0M66un4ZX5SnrJXj8Xg

mostly positive with a love letter to Ebersole.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 8:32pm

I agree with that.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:09pm

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

Wow. I guess he liked it.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:17pm

While I am thrilled by the Times review--having seen the production Off-Broadway and then on, I can't help but agree most with the Talkin' Broadway review, in that the show is more about Edith now. Still, that doesn't take away from the brilliance of Ebersole's performance. She shines in both acts, and I'm thrilled the show is getting great recognition thus far. It truly is a performance not to be missed.