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Edie
Beale lives! Not only does she live, she
rules. Already a cult hero since the release
of Albert and David Maysles’ 1974
documentary Grey Gardens, Edie Beale is
about to blow up bigger than ever – and not
only because Hollywood’s come knocking,
promising a feature film based on the
Maysles’ documentary. The mind reels: the
catfights, the backstabbing, as Hollywood’s
women of a certain age all jostle for
position for a role that’s certain to do for
their careers what Baby Jane did for Bette
and Joan, and Mommie did for Faye. The
opportunity of a lifetime – to be adored by
film queens, to own the midnight screenings
and revival houses for eternity. A prime
seat in camp heaven, never to be usurped.
Ladies, take your seats. Currently, the role
is owned by Christine Ebersole. Starring as
both Big Edie and Little Edie in two acts
separated by thirty years, Ebersole
dominates the riveting musical adaptation of
the Maysles’ brothers documentary, also
titled – what else? – Grey Gardens, now
playing at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
Given the national – universal? – fixation
on celebrity combined with our schadenfreude
at the crash-and-burn antics of those whom
we elevate to the klieg light pantheon, the
story of Jackie O’s eccentric relatives
living in East Hampton squalor is a natural
fit for America’s increasingly-bizarre
appetites.
Not unlike one of those Before and After
Renovation photographs that pepper a shelter
magazine, albeit in reverse order, the first
act, taking place in 1943, reveals Grey
Gardens, the East Hampton estate of the
Beales, at its sumptuous peak (which so
happens also to be the last hurrah of
America’s class system whereby any and all
who are not white, heterosexual, and male
are deemed second-class citizens).
As the musical begins, young Edie Bouvier
Beale is to be married to young Joseph
Kennedy, thereby insuring ongoing status for
both dynastic families. Ah, but such a
future is not to be – and not only because,
as any follower of the curse of the Kennedy
clan knows, Joe Kennedy, Jr. is not long for
the world. No, more importantly, at least
for this production, is the fact that Little
Edie’s sobriquet amongst the locals is “Body
Beautiful” – and we can’t have that sort of
sordid nonsense besmirching the Kennedy
name, now can we? Oh, the rich layers of
irony – and therein is the almost-macabre
appeal of the first act of Grey Gardens: its
“inside” view of a class of people from whom
a handful of individual tragedies will play
out upon the world’s stage.
Apart from Joe Kennedy, Jr., there’s also
Jackie and Lee as young girls, frolicking
about the gardens of the Beale estate – and
to witness their infatuation with the two
Edies is to comprehend how girls of
privilege were groomed for their adult
roles. Not for nothing were the lives of
such American females circumscribed by
lineage and money (not unlike the royals of
Europe throughout the eighteenth century),
and to defy the conventions of one’s class
was to court stigma and ostracism – or as
Little Edie makes painfully clear,
institutionalization at the hands of her
father.
To be a woman such as either of the two
Edies, possessing of an artistic temperament
– well, best to confine yourself to fashion
sketches and jottings in your European
journals as practiced by young Jackie and
Lee. Best not to sing minstrel songs, least
of all in front of the neighbors. And best
not to have a reputation for being
progressive, independent, forward thinking,
or creative. Best to squash your personality
and conform to the class which surrounds you
– or else.
Else you end up like Big and Little Edie in
Act Two of Grey Gardens. Thirty years have
passed since Little Edie’s engagement party.
The guests on the lawn have been replaced by
fifty-two cats. Pate or cat food? Who’s to
say what’s on the plate? In fact, there’s no
one to entertain, except the neighbor boy
who comes around to look after the two Edies.
Mother and daughter, all alone in that big
house. You’ve got to have a sense of humor.
And Ms. Ebersole as Little Edie in Act Two
comes out and greets her audience: the
neighbors, the locals, the curiosity-seekers
intrigued by all those articles about Jackie
O’s eccentric East Hampton relatives. And
Little Edie’s going to show them a thing or
two. Now wearing an outfit of her own
design, she’s no longer living according to
the dictates of her class, her family, her
bloodlines, her past.
It’s freedom, of a sort. Hard earned, but
there it is. No longer confined by paternal
expectations, Little Edie lives her days
according to the voices in her head. Her
head, not someone else’s. Her father
would’ve put her away, she says. Lobotomized
her, maybe – just look what happened to that
Rosemary Kennedy. That’s how it was for
women then. And gay men. And blacks.
Minorities without voices during a time when
class ruled. You know your place; now, get
in line – or else.
Or else— You listen to your octogenarian
mother sing about the pleasures of corn
cooked on a hot plate. Or else— You wait for
the local stoner boy, your Marble Faun, to
come over and listen to you sing. You think
about him thinking about you. You think
about the talent you squandered and how it
is you ended up here, alone with “Mother,
Darling.” You two were the ones who couldn’t
strangle the creative urges inside – and
this is what it got you: “Another Winter in
a Summer Town.”
In the end, it’s the question we all face:
Should I have done it differently? Could I
have? The plague of aging: dashed hopes and
broken dreams, optimism smashed upon the
rocks of youth. And yet somehow we carry on,
caring for each other, sharing soup. That’s
what we are left with: the little pleasures
of life.
Grey Gardens is one of the big ones.
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