Tragicomedy set to music
Review by David Ollington

With Grey Gardens, the Unicorn Theatre once again offers Kansas City the premiere of a piece of theatre (this one a musical), infusing excellence into a tragicomic story taken from real life, exposing a disturbing corner of humankind.

Playwright Doug Write with composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie used as inspiration the 1975 documentary film of the same name. In 2009, HBO produced a dramatized version with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange.

(l to r) Brandon Sollenberger as Jerry, Kathleen Warfel as Edith Bouvier Beale (“Big” Edie) and Cathy Barnett as “Little” Edie Beale (photo by Cynthia Levin, courtesy of Unicorn Theatre)

Audience members enter the theatre and view the front porch of a dilapidated home. The intermittent wailing of a cat penetrates the wait for the onset of the performance. This choice by Sound Designer Benjamin G. Stickels against the backdrop of Set Designer Gary Mosby's shabby porch puts us in a specific location: a feral home occupied by cats.

The show is divided into three segments, a Prologue, Act I and Act II.

During the prologue, set in 1973, Kathleen Warfel as Edith Bouvier Beal, the eccentric aunt of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, wanders onto the porch, holding a dizzy conversation with Cathy Barnett as daughter Edie Beale. “We have some of the most beautiful kitties in the world,” Warfel proclaims.

Mosby’s porch splits in half and each segment wheels away to unveil a clean, elegant interior, carrying us into Act I, 32 years in the past.

Grey Gardens tell the true story of a precipitous downfall of this mother and daughter. Act I seems like a Noel Coward musical comedy, witty repartee, charming songs and screwball comedy antics.

The hilarious and versatile Cathy Barnett plays two parts in the show, Edith Bouvier Beal the younger in Act I, daughter Edie, as an adult, in Act II.

The action moves like lightning. It’s1941, before Pearl Harbor, and Edith busily prepares for a party this evening. Frankel and Korie included in their refreshingly nostalgic score a number titled “The Five-Fifteen” in reference to the arrival of a train and all that needs to get done before then. Excitingly staged by director/choreographer Nedra Dixon, “The Five Fifteen” lists tasks (“4:00 – glaze the salmon and aspic”), drives at a brisk tempo and continually modulates to higher keys, increasing the stress of hosting such an upper-crust event.

Debonair, witty, and silver-voiced, Seth Golay plays George Gould Strong, Edie’s pianist and personal consultant. Gould practically lives on booze. “A bloody Mary does not a breakfast make,” admonishes Edie. The character’s flamboyant same-sex flirtation incites homophobic jabs from other characters. Films and plays from the early 1940s rarely if ever address homosexuality with frank openness; the production so perfectly reenacts this period that Gould’s behavior seems delightfully shocking.

Mother Edith, a singer, works with Gould to prepare musical numbers to perform at the evening’s party. She sandwiches rehearsals between family arguments and event planning. Barnett as Edith executes the songs with effortless satire. Two of these songs stand out for expressing an acceptable (for the 1940s) racism:  a Geisha number complete with ethnocentric imitations of Asian dance moves, and an appalling “Mammy” song called “Hominy Grits.” She sings, “Once you do your pickin’ you gits fried chicken, all God’s chillin’ loves hominy grits.” The inappropriateness of the material coupled with the flawless execution makes for sidesplitting hilarity.

The Ivy-League verbal sparring and polyphonic bickering in Act I lead to the demise of a home. Grey Gardens shows the downfall of not just a family but also a building. A sumptuous mansion in the 1940s becomes a monolithic slum in the 1970s. The plot’s basis in fact intensifies the horror.

Lauren Braton (singing beautifully) plays daughter Edie Beale the younger in the first act. Conflicts between mother Edith and daughter Edie lead to the crumbling of this opulence. Brandon Sollenberger, with understated sophistication, plays Joseph Patrick Kenney, Jr., the older brother of JFK and Edie’s betrothed. Edith, through intimate and revelatory dyad with Joe, manages to scare him away from Edie and from the family. Edith attempts to calm Edie’s fury with, “Marriage is for tax codes and Mormons, not for free thinkers like ourselves.”

Act I races with vengeance and brightness. Act II wallows in a mired pathos. The verbiage of 1941 makes us chuckle and often underlies sinister premonition.  Robert Gibby Brand as Edith’s father, J.V. “Major” Bouvier, says to his granddaughters, “They say greatness skips a generation.” Regarding Edith’s treatment of her daughter’s love interests, he tells Edith, “You drive her suitors away faster than a social disease.”

Despite (or because of) mother and daughter differences, Edith and Edie end up enmeshed in a tragic codependence. After an intermission with the occasional sound of a “meow,” we witness with revulsion the results of the family conflicts. Edith and Edie, now Warfel and Barnett respectively, subsist in the same building.  It’s 1973 and insects, raccoons and cats replace the servants and wealthy guests from 1941. The money disappeared. The screen door brandishes a warning notice from the Department of Health.

Scenic Designer Gary Mosby shows his versatility; he replaces Act I’s clean walls with bare boards, fills Act II with more space than bric-a-brac, and uses a central revolve to delineate the various rooms in the squalor.

In the opening song of Act II, “The Revolutionary Costume for Today,” Barnett sings about using found clothes to improvise attention-getting ensembles.  Costume Designers Jon Fulton Adams and Megan Turek drape her head with an oddly shaped shawl and her legs with a bright red button up sweater serving as a makeshift skirt, an outfit very funny in its awkwardness.

Act II rides heavy on ballads and soliloquies. Our sadness mixes with disgust. We witness how one branch of a royal family tree can wither to extremes.  Necessarily, the pulled-back pace of the latter half gets tedious after such a roller coaster of Act I. This fits the plot: Life in Grey Gardens in the ‘70s probably moved slowly, giving weight to the hours and the hopelessness of the situation.

Nedra Dixon directed a masterpiece of a production. Every element fits the whole with an encompassing variety, expressiveness and humanity.

Grey Gardens runs until Feb. 28 at the Unicorn Theatre. Call 816-531-PLAY or visit www.UnicornTheatre.org.

David Ollington can be contacted at Ollington@aol.com