REVIEW: '4000 Miles' covers the distance between two generations

A touching new play by Amy Herzog, “4000 Miles” is an understated yet wise contemporary story about an elderly woman and her grandson who may be far apart in many ways but tenderly relate to each other in spite of their obvious distance in years and experience.

Opening on Monday at The Duke, “4000 Miles” is the latest production by LCT3, which is Lincoln Center Theater’s ongoing series that benefits developing writers and audiences alike by offering first-class shows for a bargain $20 ticket.

This play is loosely connected to Herzog’s “After the Revolution,” which premiered at Playwrights Horizons last season and regarded a Manhattan family of long-time lefties dealing with ghosts arising from the Communist black-listings of the 1950s. I wasn’t as crazy about it as some colleagues, but Lois Smith was notable as the feisty widow of a perhaps not-so-noble martyr of the progressive movement.

That character, Vera, now reappears in “4000 Miles” as portrayed with great salt-of-the-earth veracity by Mary Louise Wilson, who nabbed a well-deserved Tony Award several years back as the maddening old mama in the musical “Grey Gardens.”

Living alone in her Greenwich Village apartment, Vera is surprised by the unannounced arrival of her 21-year-old grandson Leo who has just completed a cross-country bicycle trek interrupted by the accidental death of a good friend along the way. Quietly grieving and at a loss about what to do with his future, Leo is a sweet guy who bonds with the crotchety but fond Vera, who is irritated by increasing decrepitude.

“You know, the worst thing about getting old, and there are a lot of bad things, is not being able to find my words,” says Vera, who frequently falls back on “whaddayacallit” in her conversation. “I just hate not being able to find my words, I feel like an idiot.”

Due to his youth, Leo proves to be somewhat inarticulate himself and the play’s ten brief scenes see him try to reconnect with a girlfriend (Zoe Winters) and otherwise work through his woes. Highlights include a funny interlude with flirtatious Amanda (a hilarious Greta Lee), a tipsy motor-mouth who Leo fails to seduce. Scruffy, lanky Gabriel Ebert is effectively careless and sorrowful as Leo.

Always a pleasure to observe, Wilson beautifully portrays Vera as a physically frail but inwardly tough individual who appreciates her grandson’s troubles while not completely comprehending them.

Grey Gardens News: Grey Gardens the musical hits Chester, NJ

It doesn’t exactly sound like a toe-tapper, but Jeffrey Fiorello, who’s co-directing the show, said “Grey Gardens” actually has a good bit of levity to it. That’s especially true of Act 1, which recreates the lives of the two Ediths during their salad days when they were happy and living well.

“Act 1 is treated very much like a traditional musical, there are happy songs, serious songs and some ballads,” Fiorello said. “It plays very much like an old-fashioned musical. Whereas act 2 is quite different and delves into the two women’s psyche and quite a bit more.”

Fiorello said the first act is a fictionalized account of the Beales’ lives in the 1940s. The second is set in the 1970s, when they become shut-ins, and is pretty faithful to the movie of the same name ( there's also a 2009 update ), Fiorello said.

In casting the show, Chester Theatre Group followed the model used on Broadway by having the same actress play Edith in the first act and “Little Edie” in the second act. Christine Ebersole won a Tony for pulling the double duty on Broadway, and Barbara Haag will play the two roles in this production. Barbi McGuire plays the older Edith in the second act, and Sandy Taylor plays young “Little Edie” in the first act. The cast also includes Robert Jacobson, Alistair Williams, Thomas Cioppettini and Hannah Curtis as Jacqueline Bouvier.

Fiorello is co-directing “Grey Gardens” with Mark Happel, who’s also a board member at Chester Theatre Group. The two-director format came along because of both directors’ schedules.

“I’ve directed a couple of pieces for them and Mark has as well,” Fiorello said. “We’ve collaborated creatively on shows but we’ve never worked together as co-directors. Mark loves this show, possibly more than me, and when we were looking at doing it, everyone kind of assumed Mark would be directing it. Mark felt he was going to be a little too busy at this point of the year to take on the whole project by himself.”

The two-director format works, according to Fiorello, because the two acts are so different in tone. While both directors share input on both acts, Fiorello is predominantly responsible for the first act, and Happel is more involved in the second.

“We both chime in and make sure the show has a similar feel and that there’s continuity from act to act,” he said. “Mark and I are collaborating considerably on each other’s acts but there’s one point person for the cast to ask questions [for each act]. It’s worked quite well.

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