One of my last shows of 2015 was
The Dazzle, a story based on a real-life pair of
wealthy, reclusive hoarders, and I kick off 2016 with another one, this time in
musical form. Edith Bouvier Beale was the aunt of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who in
the 1970s found notoriety when she and her daughter were found living in
a dilapidated mansion filled with junk and cats. Named after the house
where the two holed themselves up for decades, Doug Wright (book,) Scott Frankel
(music) and Michael Korie's (lyrics)
Grey Gardens looks at how a family of
Hamptons socialites turned into crazy cat ladies, by taking us back to 1941: Edith
(Jenna Russell) is organising an engagement party for her daughter Little Edie
(Rachel Anne Rayham,) and putting herself at the centre of it with a plan to perform
a number of songs. Little Edie has landed a Kennedy of her own, JFK's older brother
Joseph Jr* (Aaron Sidwell,) but when her mother realises she'll end up alone, she sabotages the engagement.
