"GARDENS" IN BLOOM

In 1975, just as I was graduating (gulp) high school, the independent documentary film was on the crest of a wave, with the work of D.A. Pennebaker and the Maysles Brothers setting the groundwork for Barbara Koppelman, Errol Morris, Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock and many others to come . Documentary film was becoming its own genre, American newsreel reporting giving way to more subjective explorations of non-fictive subjects. (One could argue this had already happened with Leni Riefenstahl and others in Germany, but this was a distinctly American wave.) Jumping on a fascinating news story, the Maysles Brothers created what was and has remained one of the most startling film documents of the 20th Century--GREY GARDENS, the cinema verite exploration of the world of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie, cousins of Jackie Kennedy Onasis, who after being passed over by the rich and the aristocratic in the 40s and 50s were now living in total squalor with over 50 cats, crumbling plaster and faulty plumbing in a once-grand mansion that had been called Grey Gardens in East Hampton. Even a high school senior saw the articles and pictures, and the film was one of the most talked-about events of the year. I remember desperately wanting to see it, but documentary films and teenagers living outside of major cities rarely came together. (And by the time I was in college, things had moved on.) Yet to this day, GREY GARDENS is on the list of top ten all-time great documentaries (as compiled by the Independent Documentary Association or IDA).

That someone would think to create a piece of musical theater from this 30 years later is pretty hard to believe, but that they would do it so well is amazing! GREY GARDENS: THE MUSICAL is currently at the Walter Kerr Theatre, adapted by Doug Wright (Tony winner for I AM MY OWN WIFE), with a score by Scott Frankel & Michael Korie. Michael Greif (RENT) has directed with sensitivity and imagination, and a gifted supporting cast (John McMartin, Bob Stillman, Erin Davie, Michael Potts, Matt Kavenaugh, Sarah Hyland and Kelsey Fowler take a bow) is anchored with lightening-bolt performances by Mary Louise Wilson (playing Edith in Act Two) and the incomparable Christine Ebersole (playing Big Edith in the Act One and Little Edie in Act Two).

If you weren't part of the select few who saw the off-Broadway production, you must see its Broadway transfer. If not always the perfect show, it is at the very least perfection in what it is trying to do--exploring people in a piece of history and their emotional lives, while doing said exploration in a most imaginative and theatrical way. To essay mental, physical and emotional deterioration is certainly a challenge worthy of Tennessee Williams, and to do so to people who, due to who they were AND to the cult status of this film, are icons of American culture is a risky challenge that could border on the kitsch. But GREY GARDENS heroines are treated unsparingly but with respect, and the result is a fascinating journey into madness. Act One is mostly supposition based on fact--one day in the life of the Bouvier-Beale household on the day Edie is to become engaged to a young fighter-pilot and senator-to-be, Joe Kennedy Jr. In a beautiful well-manicured estate, we detect some rot under the surface and the potential for the disaster of a lifetime. Act Two, more than 30 years later, shows how the rot had taken over and settled in, with mother and daughter now living like two bag-ladies in a place they hadn't the courage or strength to leave, surrounded by stray cats, raccoons, and filth.

What's so scary about the documentary--and what continues to work in the musical--is not that the mighty have fallen so far, but that it is easy to feel yourself sucked into the madness. These women have both lost it and yet not, such that you begin to fear for your own sanity--and begin to understand that unless the fates are kind, such a thing could happen to you. Ebersole's amazing dual performance of a glamorous, eccentric society star in the first act and a slightly unhinged former debutante in the second act is sure to remain in the pantheon of classic Broadway performances. But Ebersole and Wilson are not merely imitating the speech patterns and appearances of these two abandoned harpies (although they are indeed spot on as far as that goes). They indeed have channeled these women, and much as the documentary bares their souls, you feel these women on stage as truly as you do in the film.

There may be lags and limitations to a stage adaptation--one might wish for more of the cats and their presence (who seem to function as a feline Greek chorus in the film). But to see this kind of audacious exploration done with such talent and bravery deserves support and encouragement, for this is the realm to which great theater endeavors to take us.

Oh, and did I tell you it's also genuinely hilarious amidst the heart-break?!

Highly recommended for anyone who loves to see new, different and well-crafted theater.