Audiences don't mind shows with offbeat subject matter. MOST musicals have offbeat subject matter. Wicked is fairly offbeat subject matter (and I would say the music is just as populist as that in Sideshow). Shows fail for a large variety of reasons, that often being one of the least of them.
"Act One is not a "fantasy". Like all biographical stories, they condensed major events into a story. Dramatic licensing. It's all based on the docs and speaking to people who knew them from the Maysles to Jerry." Erm, the play is pretty damn clear (with all the whoooo music and the high-handed declarations) that Act One is not meant to be taken literally. If anything Act One presents more mystery than anything else in the show (versus the much more literal second act) because it is supposedly Little Edie's memory, and we're supposed to get by the end of act one that Little Edie is maybe a little cracked.
Most biographical stories draw their power from specificity to tell their stories. Take a recent movie, Queen Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I did not think this was a great movie. It was a fun movie, interesting, sure. But the movie has a fairly unfortunate grasp of history (even if it follows the basic details), more an excuse for the leading lady to show off than to tell about history, make observations about it, etc... much like Grey Gardens IN MY OPINION.
I think Grey Gardens might be better off without the first act, which is slightly redundant and highlights many of my problems with the show (although it has great songs).
The dramatic question is whether or not Little Edie is going to escape this existence. She does at the end of Act One only to end up back where she began but with greater obstacles. Big Edie wants to hold onto her daughter after having lost everything else. But everyone knows going into the play that Edie will come back in act two and live with her mother again. Never in the play is the question of whether or not Little Edie will escape seriously confronted. It's flirted with and mused upon as a possibility, and she longs to do it, but it's not like she comes to the brink of doing it and retreats. It's just a facet of her character.
It's not really a satisfying dilemma anyway.
"Either Edie is now too old or too crazy to realistically pursue an acting career and they know it."
I'd say that is all wrong given that Little Edie DID pursue a career after Big Edie's death. But that doesn't happen in the play, nor is it implied.
Better? Not really.
I just think of Grey Gardens as the ultimate impressionist musical, even more than Pacific Overtures or Assassins. The characters and situations flit in and out without real consequence, mostly treating us to a slice of life sort of show. I like the show because of that, because it's a musical experiment. I just wasn't especially satisfied by that experiment.
I'm honestly not the first person to say this. Michael Feingold called it the first musical about a house. I'm not saying Grey Gardens shouldn't exist, it definitely should, it's a great show. The flaws in artistic works are often what makes them interesting, and all artistic works are flawed (even Hamlet). If you take risks, you're going to screw up in some places.
yr ronin,
joey
