Grey Gardens
Cast Recording
Music by Scott Frankel
Lyrics by Michael Korie
Book by Doug Wright |
Issued 2006 and again in 2007
Running time 69:48 - 22 Tracks
Packaged with notes, 14 photos and synopsis
PS Classics PS-642
List Price $18.98 |
Click here to buy the CD
Broadway Version
Off Broadway Version
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In 2006, an off-Broadway production of a musical based on the bizarre 1973
documentary of two formerly wealthy socialites holding out in squalor amid
the high fashion domain on the far tip of Long Island was a sensation. PS
Classics recorded it and issued it as PS-642. Then the show transferred to
Broadway where the fabulous performances of
Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson captured the Tony Awards for best
leading actress and supporting actress. There had been significant changes
to the show between off-Broadway and the final Broadway run, with songs
dropped and others added. What was PS Classics to do about an Original
Broadway Cast album in light of the fact that they had already issued the
Off-Broadway Cast Album which captured most --but not all -- of the show
as it appeared on Broadway? Leaving just the off-Broadway recording would
slight some very important work. Issuing a new one with a new catalogue
number might be viewed as an attempted rip off, since most of its contents
would be duplicative of the earlier recording. PS Classics attempted to do
the honorable thing. They recorded the new material, blended it with the
already recorded material that had been retained and released it with the
same catalogue number so people wouldn't find two different items to buy.
Today, if you order PS-642, you get the Broadway version (or, at least you
are supposed to - some dealers may be selling off old stock before sending
out the new). They do their usual superb job of recording and packaging, but
they miss the boat in not explaining why there are two versions of the same
album floating around. They could (and should) have at least put a note of
explanation on the back cover. |
Storyline: Reclusive Edith Bouvier Beale and her adult daughter live in
squalor in what had been a grand 28-room "cottage" in Long Island's
exclusive East Hampton enclave, surrounded by cats, raccoons and filth, as
shown in the documentary made in 1973. The musical tries to explain how they
went from wealthy socialites (they were the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline
Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis - who is a character in the musical at age
twelve) to a state where the local health department tries to evict them.
In 1973, the film documentary caught
the imagination of many as it took an unblinking look at the existence of
the bizarre mother-daughter team. The documentary made no effort to explain why
or how the pair came to their dissolute condition, it just documented it.
Scott Frankel, Michael Korie and Doug Wright tried to delve into the "how" and
"why" through the medium of musical theater, and came up with a
fabulous show. While the second act is essentially a musicalization of the
view into the lives of the mother and daughter in the squalor of the 1970s,
the first is a look at a fictitious moment in the 1940s when the seeds of
their problems were sown. As a result, the score is very different between
the first act and the second, although it uses sophisticated musical and
textual techniques to tie the two halves together into a coherent whole.
With a superb set of vocal performances and thoughtful orchestrations by
Bruce Coughlin, the result is a score not only worth owning, but
worth studying with care.
Ebersole switches roles at the mid-point. In the first
half -- the 1941 half -- she is the then-middle aged mother whose ego is
big enough to dampen the ardor of her husband and dash the dreams of her
daughter, "Little Edie," played in the Off-Broadway production by Sarah Gettelfinger and on Broadway by Erin Davie. In the second
- the 1973 half -- Ebersole is the daughter in her own mid-fifties,
totally dominated by her mother (now played by Wilson) and
desperate to justify her situation through highly selective and probably
inventive memory. Ebersole manages the shift marvelously and creates two distinct
characters, each of which compels fascination. The twin-role approach allows
subtle evidence of family tendencies to come to the fore without seeming to
be alibis or rationales for strange behavior, and her singing is, as you
would expect if you know her Tony Award winning work from the revival of
42nd Street, solidly controlled and highly polished.
The entire cast is good. Wilson's work as the elderly
mother is nicely captured here. Matt Cavenaugh is impressive in a dual role,
that of the young Joseph Kennedy Jr. in the first half and as the
young handyman who sparks the competitive juices of mother and daughter in
the second half. The always marvelous John McMartin is also in a dual role,
but is only really effective in the first act as family
patriarch, "Major" J. J. Bouvier. In the second he is the Reverend
Norman Vincent Peale and the doubling doesn't work quite as well. Bob Stillman does nice work as
the mother's
live-in accompanist in the first act.
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