Sep 5, 2008

Themes of 'Grey Gardens' not so back and white

By John Angell Grant / Theater Reviewer

Now this is a weird play. That would be "Grey Gardens," the musical based on the 1975 documentary film of the same title about an eccentric mother and daughter who were Bouvier relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy, but who lived in squalid poverty in a 28-room Long Island mansion, filled with cat feces and other trash.

A couple of years ago the film was developed into a stage musical in New York, and went on to some Broadway success. Now TheatreWorks has mounted the first post-Broadway production, running at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

In "Grey Gardens" the mother and daughter are bonded together pathologically. They can't live with each other, and they can't live without each other.

The big limitation to this play is that it doesn't bring much insight to that situation. In the end, we don't understand what caused the two women to be this way.

The first half of "Grey Gardens" backs up chronologically to a more prosperous time in 1941, when Long Island debutante "Little" Edie (winsome Elisa Van Duyne) dates John F. Kennedy's older brother Joe and looks forward to a glamorous career as a politician's wife. Her mother, Edith Bouvier Beale (Beth Glover), then proceeds to wreck the engagement by telling Joe tales of her daughter's promiscuity.

Fast-forward 31 years later to 1973, when the mother (now Dale Soules) and daughter (now Glover, switching roles) live in the same 28-room mansion, now a pigsty. Mother and daughter bicker, yattering on about dreams and conflicts of the past.

"Grey Gardens" is a National Enquirer tale, about a family whose relationships are built on fear. In the end, it feels like one of those numerous, lost drawing room dramas from 1920s Broadway that never gets produced any more, because it depends largely for its audience interest on topical references long since past.

The script seems back-created. Thus, in the show's tony first half, patriarch J.V. "Major" Bouvier (Paul Myrvold) sings to little Jackie and Lee Bouvier, advising them to "Marry Well." Jackie married a president, and Lee married a prince.

The strongest musical numbers are in the second act. This later part of the play, set in 1973, seems more emotionally honest than the upscale 1941 first half, although little happens in it.

One highlight is "Jerry Loves My Corn," a completely wacky number about what Edith and "Little" Edie think is going on in the head of the stoner handyman who comes by their rundown house to help with a few repairs before a health department inspection.

Director Kent Nicholson's production seems well-paced, and performed by a solid professional cast. It's just that you can only do so much with a story that doesn't go anywhere or reveal much in the way of insight.

There are some accent issues. The mother's patrician accent and the daughter's non-Manhattan, New York inflection do not fit together, and there's no explanation why. Joe Kennedy's (Nicholas Galbraith's) Massachusetts lilt is a tough sell. Galbraith is funnier in the second act as stoner Jerry.

Designer J.B. Wilson's full-stage mansion facade opens up into a glamorous living room interior or squalid bedroom, depending on the scene.

If you love standing in the checkout aisle of the supermarket reading the National Enquirer, this show may be for you. But if you are not inclined to reach for the Enquirer while waiting for your bananas to be scanned, you may want to skip "Grey Gardens."

Rating: Two stars

Email John Angell Grant at jagplays@yahoo.com.