Garden of Edies.Grey Gardens * Book by Doug Wright
Doug Wright is an award-winning American playwright, librettist, and screenplay writer. , music by Scott Frankel Scott David Frankel (born May 6, 1963) is an American composer and musical director. Career He graduated from Yale University in 1985, when he was also inducted into the Skull and Bones secret society. While at Yale he met playwright Doug Wright. , lyrics by Michael Korie * Musical staging by Jeff Calhoun * Directed by Michael Greif * Starring Christine Ebersole, Mary Louise Wilson * Playwrights Horizons, New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. (through April 23) You might think that the musical version of Grey Gardens, the 1975 cult favorite documentary about Jackie Kennedy's eccentric aunt and cousin, would be a campy chamber piece about two wacky dames knocking around a dilapidated Long Island mansion. And there's some of that in the second act, which sticks closely to the movie's portrayal of former aristocrats reduced to squalor. But this is a full-scale Broadway-style musical whose first act focuses on Edith Bouvier Bouvier refers to several things:
tr.v. des·tined, des·tin·ing, des·tines 1. To determine beforehand; preordain: a foolish scheme destined to fail; a film destined to become a classic. 2. to enter the cabaret-pop pantheon, "Will You?" and "Another Winter in a Summer Town." But the real reason to see Grey Gardens is to worship at the feet of Christine Ebersole, an always terrific actress and singer who gives a staggering performance. In act 1 she plays the mother, an aging beauty with a failed singing career, a daughter she loves-hates (charmless Sara Gettelfinger), a straying husband, and a gay sidekick (Bob Stillman, who's excellent). It's Amanda Wingfield meets Mama Rose, as played by Bette Davis or perhaps Lucille Ball. In act 2, set 32 years later, Ebersole eerily transforms into the Little Edie we know from the movie, with her insane outfits and stream-of-consciousness monologues. She and the great Mary Louise Wilson as bedridden bed·rid·den or bed·rid adj. Confined to bed because of illness or infirmity. but still domineering dom·i·neer·ing adj. Tending to domineer; overbearing. dom  i·neer Big Edie are suitably hilarious and pathetic while preserving the mystery of a mother-daughter bond that nurtures and suffocates them both.
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