the problem with Grey Gardens — Page 3

Not at all. And the film could be fascinating. I am simply saying that I don't think it was a flaw.

ETA--for the musical not to SHOW the period between.

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Updated On: 10/24/07 at 05:51 PM

Besty, you know, I don't consider myself one of those people who need everything spelled out for me. Goodness! I'm an artist and very frequently my work is abstract. I see films and plays which leave much to the imagination, and I appreciate them. I'm able to give lots of thought to those pieces.

However, with GG, my problem was the drastic change in the women. I thought it was a little too drastic. One would have to come up with a lot of scenarios to come to a conclusion. I think it's great to have to come up with our own conclusions if you don't have to fabricate practically an entire life. I need a "little" more info. But that's just me.

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The fascinating thing to me is that I didn't perceive it as that drastic of a change.

The "drastic" part was their surroundings and their circumstances... and the fact that they didn't change enough to get out of them.

I'm sure Little Edie was cavorting around as a young beautiful debutante doing silly dances, acting outrageous for a laugh, still headstrong, still saying what she wanted to say... and Big Edie was still judgmental, controlling and in denial about her own life. The difference was the money, the social circle they were "behaving" in, the advantages they had, their YOUTH, and the opportunities and possibilities that lay before them.

Jump ahead 40 years, and the truly mystifying part is that they're STILL acting the same way. The house has fallen down in ruins around them, Big Edie is still ordering her daughter to behave like a proper young lady (even though she's almost 60!), and Little Edie is still "doing silly dances," acting outrageous and pining for (what amounts to) the loss of her high school sweethearts. Yet they have little or no opportunities ahead of them. "Youth" and "possibility" are gone now.

In my opinion, they didn't change ENOUGH, when life hit them upside the head. They "floated above it all" in their minds, and with each other... yet they continued to age, they didn't accept responsibilities that faced them, and they didn't learn anything from their past experiences.

That's the jaw-dropping part for me, between Act I and Act II:

How little they changed in spite of their circumstances. Our perceptions of them are now as two "crazy old ladies," when in truth, if you added back in their youth, money, advantages, social circles, opportunities, etc., we would say, "Oh, aren't they charming individuals?" or "What a delightful couple of colorful, special characters!"

Instead, we see them as misfits and freaks... and many are deeply disturbed or confused by the results.

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Well, I disagree and there you have it. We just won't be agreeing on this.

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Interesting, Besty. I guess we really differ here.

I think they turned into "freaks" to use the term that the public used for them back in the day. If they were the least bit like their former selves, the squalor they lived in wouldn't be there, for one thing. Little Edie dressed in a bizarre fashion. Oh, I could go on. Living in that kind of squalor and not doing anything about it is one of the symptoms of severe mental illness. I know this from my sibling's condition.

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Isn't one of the (fundamental) definitions of "mental illness" to do the same exact thing, over and over again, and expect a different result?

I would say that describes the Beale ladies. They kept "doing their thing," despite everything crumbling and fading around them.

Perhaps they didn't show enough of that for you in Act 1. They did for me. Although Little Edie wasn't tying scarves around her head (at least not on the night of her engagement party), I've no doubt she did many similar silly/rebellious things as a youth. They just got "sillier" (aka "crazier") and more rebellious as she got older.

They did become "extremes" of their innate personalities ("first your another sloe-eyed vamp, then someone's mother, then you're camp..."), but those traits and eccentricities were present all along.

Perhaps the story could have been improved (for you) if you had seen more of that come out in Act 1.

In a 20-year-old beautiful, well-kept debutante traits like that are "fun." She's Body Beautiful Beale, after all! In a 60-year-old destitute woman, living in squalor with her ancient mother, it's not so attractive or forgivable... or easily explainable.

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Updated On: 10/24/07 at 07:08 PM

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thanks Jerby, all's well that end's well~

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I will spare everyone the details, but I saw "Grey Gardens" unfold in my own life within my own family. Going from wealth and social status to reclusivity and isolation is a PROCESS...and not necessarily a captivating one, believe me. It tooks YEARS to get from Point A to Point B and explaining all the events that occurred in between does not guarantee that you will have answers...or that it will be particularly dramatic or entertaining!

What is striking about it is the CONTRAST. And that is what the creators of the musical saw, too.

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Oops! I actually meant to say "sweaters," as I had previously.

But you're absolutely right. And as Jerby would be quick to rush in and say, "See? It's all there."

And I agree... that (for me) enough of the "seeds are sewn" in Act I for a very powerful, artistically inspiring, entertaining, and thought-provoking Act II.

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if Edie often lied, then how do we know she really went to New York and was a failed actress? that would have been an interesting angle to take with the show - having an unreliable narrator presenting one story but having the audience seeing the disconnect with reality.

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Well, she got rave reviews and a Tony. I gather she did it just right. Who are you to tell her what technique to use?

And if you want to see a different version of the show, write it. Make that version happen.

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I love the fact that the musical DOESN'T spell it out why they fell apart so dramatically. You are purposefully left to imagine why.

I had no problem with the Broadway GREY GARDENS.

And I love this Feingold quote in particular: "And dominating the whole event, like a double-faced caryatid, is Christine Ebersole, as the first act's still-young Big Edie and the second act's tormented Little Edie, an architectural monument of Gothic archness, ornately ludicrous, desperately vulnerable, and astonishingly beautiful."

I thrill every time a critic uses a word like "caryatid".

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