“Free show” are the two greatest words in the English language. Even better than that, though, is when you get to see the hilarious and sad musical “Grey Gardens” for free. The show, which I saw this past Wednesday, was a preview night to Thursday’s opening. The preview nights at the Penn State Downtown Theatre Center are typically free, knowledge which I serendipitously fell into thanks to Jen Kach, my sassy sidekick in all endeavors artistic. The preview was set to start at 8 p.m., but thanks to Jen’s Theatre 100 course, we were told to make sure to arrive an hour early. Knowing us, we arrived even earlier than necessary.
At first the theatre was completely empty and we felt a bit foolish for our eager beaver entrance. Jen and I loitered around and took a peek at the School of Theatre’s class photo in the lobby. We scoped out any Theatre and Musical Theatre Majors like it was our job. Not long after our Where’s Waldo? diversion, though, bunches of people started pouring in. We migrated to the hallway right outside the doors of the theatre where we continued to pass the time by looking through photos of past productions.
When it was finally time for the doors to open, the entire lobby and front hallway of the Downtown Theatre were full wall-to-wall with people. A bunch of students were there to get credit for various theatre classes, but an equal portion were there just to enjoy the show. It was pretty astounding. After making two lines, the woman in charge of seating had two of the ushers run down each line to count up to 69. This was the amount of students that the theatre would be able to accommodate. It was obvious that a fair amount of people waiting would have to be asked to see the show another night, although they would have to pay for a ticket on those other nights.
The usher who ran down our line joked, “You better remember your numbers now. This is crucial business!” Good thing we had gotten there so early because after the chaos of lining up, Jen was number three and I was number four. It was pretty much a guarantee that we would get in to see the show for free. But we did have a bit of a worrisome moment when a whispered conversation between the seating woman and a member of the crew resulted in the necessity of a second cut of students. Apparently, they had only budgeted one seat for the design team of the show. The rest of them were going to have to stand in the back of the theatre to watch, until they negotiated their seats. By the end of both rounds of cutting, almost 50 people had to be turned away. The intimate Downtown Theatre could only seat 130 students that night after subtracting the handful of seats for crew members of the show.
Sorting out the seating ended up taking so long that the show didn’t get underway until 8:17. “There’s one for the record books, kids!” Jen said. We definitely were not expecting to have to scramble so much for our seats.
Inside the theatre, we watched Act 2 of “Grey Gardens” as an adaptation of the lives of Big and Little Edie Beale, famous cousins of Jackie O. This mother daughter pair hilariously goes on with their eccentricities, singing about the high life they don’t seem to be aware that they are no longer a part of. But at the same time, if you look beyond the songs at the home that they have made together in their Grey Gardens mansion, no longer fit for human habitation, their story of stagnancy turns tragic. They are pathos provoking pack rats.
It becomes very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present, which the musical emphasizes by having past and present Edies on stage at the same time. And if you remember Jessica Lange’s and Drew Barrymore’s Big and Little Edies from HBO’s 2009 TV movie “Grey Gardens”, you know Little Edie is certainly preoccupied with what she could have had in her past. She thinks she was made for the pictures while her mother kept her at Grey Gardens.
Basically, the School of Theatre’s show was a musical adaptation based on a fictional film adaptation of a documentary film of the lives of two eccentric women from the first, and probably only, family of American royalty. All of which made seeing “Grey Gardens” the musical incredibly intriguing. The story is all about why these two women would stay, not only at Grey Gardens, but also with each other. And just in case you missed the memo about the School of Theatre’s presentation of “Grey Gardens,” and if you don’t have the hour and a half necessary for a viewing of the original documentary of the Edies (linked to above), definitely check out these famous scenes of Little Edie singing and Big Edie in the Pink Room. These are some fascinating women made to be watched.