The single sharpest fact is that Helen Dallimore is reimagining the cult documentary Grey Gardens as a musical. The early stages of rehearsal are a testament to her dedication, as she fine-tunes her accent to capture the broad Mid-Atlantic drawl of Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale.
She's thrilled to be playing somebody who's her age, and who hasn't decided she's worthy of being discarded. Edie is known to most as the star of the legendary 1975 documentary Grey Gardens. In the film, Edie and her mother, Edith 'Big Edie' Bouvier Beale, once wealthy socialites, live a reclusive, co-dependent life in a crumbling mansion in New York's upmarket Hamptons. Singing, dancing, and bickering make up their days.
The musical version, written by Scott Frankel, Michael Korie, and Doug Wright, and directed by Tyran Parke, delves into the Edies' backstory. It's an intergenerational tale about the remembered past warping the present. Dallimore plays two roles in the play. In act one, set in 1941, she's Big Edie, contending with her faded dreams of being a singer, while her glamorous socialite daughter Little Edie (Meg Williams) prepares to announce her engagement to Joe Kennedy jnr.
In act two, set in 1973, Dallimore moves into the role of Little Edie, alongside Deidre Rubenstein as her mother, with the pair sharing the crumbling ruins of their home with countless raccoons and cats. The first act of the musical is mostly fictional, but the second draws heavily from that endlessly quotable film.
Little Edie remains one of the most compelling characters in American cinema, and she went on to become a camp icon, known for her eccentric outfits and sharp wit. Dallimore says that Little Edie has this absolutely no-f---s-given enjoyment of life. Every man in their life has basically discarded the Edies, but they are proud and unashamed.
They watched the documentary, and they were happy with it. That was exactly what they wanted to say about their lives. The film can be messy, grimy, and uncomfortable to watch, and at times feels exploitative. But the women always come out on top. They are defiant, staunch even.
As Dallimore puts it, 'It was shot by men, which was perfect because I think that those two women really liked having men to perform for.' But the way it's edited, I can sense that it's women looking at women. It feels feminine to me.
Dallimore has been on stage and screen for three decades, most notably in musicals: as Glinda in the first West End production of Wicked, alongside Idina Menzel, as Cinderella in Into the Woods, and in the supporting role of Paulette in Legally Blonde, for which she won a Helpmann.
Historically, women have become accustomed to the disempowerment of age. 'To losing one's fertility and attractiveness, and therefore usefulness to society,' says Dallimore. But she thinks middle-aged women of Generation X, of which she is one, are just going 'F---k that.' This is an awesome time to be alive. We're in a post-Me Too era, people are talking about menopause in a way they never did before, medical misogyny is beginning to be investigated…
The musical adaptation of Grey Gardens is set to open at fortyfivedownstairs in Melbourne from July. It's a story that promises to keep the line between the past and the present very difficult to navigate.