Exploring dysfunction and its corrosive effect on relationships. Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas’s musical version of Days of Wine and Roses, JP Miller’s teleplay and film about an alcoholic couple’s struggles with addiction, has transferred from its Off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company run last year to a limited engagement at Broadway’s Studio 54. During its ATC stand, I found this tuner slight and less impactful than the 1962 film version directed by Blake Edwards and starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. Though Michael Greif’s sleek, efficient production is less intimate in the larger house, leads Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara are more at home in the roles of Joe Clay and Kirsten Arnesen, the booze-infused pair. The connection between them is stronger and both performances have grown dramatically and vocally.
O’Hara’s Playbill bio mentions she is the first crossover artist from Broadway to the Met Opera, and you can hear the classical training in her pure, gorgeous soprano as well the deep subtext of pain and neediness she brings to Kirsten’s songs. Likewise d’Arcy James’s rich tones have deepened and express Joe’s equal loneliness. Off-Broadway, some of his arias, particularly his crazed destruction of a greenhouse in search of a hidden bottle of hooch, came across as forced, but now they feel earned.
Guettel’s music cleverly balances jazzy, fun uptempo tunes (replicating Joe and Kirsten’s buzzed euphoria) with more complex, somber numbers as reality crashes in on them. Greif employs Lizzie Clachan’s flexible set and Ben Stanton’s versatile lighting to reinforce these mood swings.
Lucas’s book keeps the story moving but still feels underdeveloped, and some of Guettel’s lyrics are overly poetic, but the performances and staging have tightened and compensate for any flaws.
Byron Jennings marvelously underplays Kirsten’s strict father, conveying his tumultuous reactions to his daughter’s decline and his contempt for his son-in-law with the simplest of gestures and expressions. Tabitha Lawing, a new addition to the cast, delivers a startlingly mature performance as Lila, the couple’s 11-year-old child. David Jennings still offers solid support as Jim, Joe’s sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous. Days of Wine and Roses is a better show now than it was Off-Broadway and deserves your attention.
