The glare of the spotlight is often too much for a celebrity just coming off a hit film. What's worse is if that film is a documentary, and you can't escape the character you're known for.
But Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale, cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, embraced the spotlight in the years following the release of the cult hit "Grey Gardens," the Maysles brothers' documentary about her and her mother's estate of the same name.
Beale used her love of performance to her advantage once she had become well known, performing live for seven nights ending on New Year's Eve at the Reno Sweeney nightclub in New York in 1978.
The Ganymede Arts theater company takes on this new, perhaps more self-conscious, Little Edie in their current production, "After the Garden: Edith Beale Live at Reno Sweeney." The troupe's artistic director, Jeffrey Johnson, stars in the nearly-one-person show. Local playwright Gerald Duval, who was Beale's manager at the time of the Reno Sweeney shows, wrote the play.
In his notes in the show's program, Johnson points out that this Little Edie may not be the one audiences have come to know and love. "This was an Edie who was a little angry," he says. "Who recently lost her mother, who found herself in the public eye, who felt a little used, and who was facing the world for the first time on her own."
While Johnson's Edie might have the same motivations as the Edie in "Grey Gardens" she is certainly the same feisty, fashion-obsessed, fun-loving eccentric. Johnson perfectly embodies Beale, making audience members wonder how they could have possibly achieved the pleasure of spending an intimate evening with their favorite cult hero.
What's more, the production perfectly recreates the atmosphere of the original performances in the back room of Miss Pixie's Furnishings and Whatnot. It is the ideal combination of media and message.
"I didn't want to do it in a theater," Johnson said in an interview with The Eagle. "Because it's really not a play, per se, it's a restaging of a cabaret show that actually happened. So I wanted to do it in a little nightclub or something like that, and Gerald, actually, the playwright, said I was in Miss Pixie's the other day, and I think you should take a look at the back warehouse."
Johnson's Little Edie envelops the newly renovated space. Miss Pixie's is a nightclub and Johnson is Edie. He recreates her presence and wraps the audience into her world. The show incorporates things she said in the original performances, other ideas expressed to Duval at various points and a loose arc into over an hour of pitch perfect mood swings, musical numbers and pithy words of wisdom.
"[It's] a little bit chaotic, but at the same time [Duval] said that she was always in control so it wasn't like she was ever up there, the little lost lamb," Johnson said.
Johnson controls the chaos beautifully to create a poignant show for all attendees, and especially those that have come to know her well. The Maysles have even invited the show to perform in their annual "Grey Gardens" festival in New York.
Little Edie enthusiasts and those in search of a good time can attend "After the Garden" on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings through April 4. Check www.ganymedearts.org for times and more information.
You can reach this staff writer at kpowell@theeagleonline.com.
