GREY GARDENS
VINTAGE THEATRE: 4/18 – 5/25
In 2007 “Grey Gardens” was nominated for
10 Tony Awards and received three. It also got the Obie Award, The Louise Lortei Award and twelve Drama Desk
Awards.
Vintage Theatre produced the musical at
their previous location on Seventeenth Avenue with great success. Now at their
new Aurora location on Dayton they’ve done it again! This time it’s better than
ever!
Humorous and heart breaking, this true-life
story of Jackie Kennedy’s aunt and cousin moves from the lavish luxury of the
societal swirl of East Hampton in the 1940s to one of isolated squalor and
decay in the seventies.
Deborah Persoff is reprising her role as
Big Edie Beale and Megan Van De Hey that of her daughter, little Edie.
Left to right: Deborah Persoff and Megan Van De Hey
Ms. Persoff’s performance is a tour de
force that unleashes a vivid portrayal of a mother whose cruel manipulative
behavior destroys the life of her daughter. The abusive mother/daughter
relationship, codependent as it is, has been brought about by Big Edie’s having
driven off everyone from Dad to husband to even her closest confidant. Whether
rationalizing the past with her rendition of “The Cake I Had” or grasping at
keeping an adolescent misfit happy with “Jerry Likes My Corn,” Persoff is
smashing … right down to her last nerve-rattling primal scream.
Left to right: Megan Van De Hey and Rebecca Myers (Photo credits: DenverMind Media)
Ms Van De Hey’s performance is superb. This
time she gives us a much more hard- boiled portrayal of Big Edie in Act One and
a much more mentally damaged Little Edie in Act Two. From her tilted rendition
of “The Revolutionary Costume for Today” to her heartbreaking singing of
“Another Winter in a Summer Town” describing the insanity-making patterns
keeping her stuck in perpetual isolation in the no-choice universe, Van De Hey
stuns.
Director Sheri Wright’s directorial
expertise shines in her layering of dialogue in key confrontational scenes.
There is such a need for a sense of place
in this musical that a great deal falls upon the artistic shoulders of the
person creating the set. The mantle of scenic designer is worn well by Douglas
Clark, who does a great job creating the look of Grey Gardens in its heyday and
later as a ruin. Clark has chosen to adorn the set with clinging vines that are
inseparable from the façade. The interior segues from a sumptuous elegance to that
of a squalid ruin littered with cans of cat food that “the health department deemed
unfit for human habitation.”
The fine supporting cast includes: Rebecca
Myers, Christian Munck, Eric Weinstein, Timothy Campbell, Katie Phipps and
Hannah Katz.
Vintage Theatre presents
"Grey
Gardens"
The hilarious and
heartbreaking story of Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier Beale.
April 18 – May 25
Fri/Sat at 7:30 p.m.; Sun at 2:30 p.m.;
Thurs. May 22 @ 7:30 p.m.; Sat., May 24 @ 2:30 p.m.
Vintage Theatre, 1468 Dayton St.,
Aurora 80010
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