The worst bar sales on Broadway have got to be at Studio 54, where “Days of Wine and Roses” opened Sunday night.
Even at a glittering Broadway musical, nobody wants to be clutching a sippy cup full of pinot grigio during a show about two mutually destructive drunks whose marriage crumbles because of booze.
Theater review
DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
One hour and 45 minutes with no intermission. At 254 W. 54th St.
When the addict couple is played so relatably by Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James, the mere sight of whiskey becomes sickening and worrisome, like a horror film slasher hiding in the closet.
In our seats, we stifle the urge to yell “Don’t do it!” at the spiraling duo as they gaze longingly at another bottle. But why bother? Poor Joe and Kirsten wouldn’t listen if we did.
So, the crowds stay eerily sober and dutifully attentive at this tense meeting of Alcoholics Melodious.
“Wine and Roses,” with a book by Craig Lucas and the usual blindfolded-xylophone-player score by Adam Guettel, is based on the 1962 film starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick.
Of course, movies and TV series concerning substance abuse are commonplace nowadays. At this month’s Sundance Film Festival, at least half the indies I saw heavily involved drugs or alcohol. Still, a live show featuring singing about hard liquor remains a much harder sell.
The story is sad, but not tragic. And while the characters grow, their resolution is neither uplifting nor clear-cut. Also, in our wellness-obsessed reality, there is a distancing 1960s sensibility in watching a stay-at-home mom vacuum as she smokes a cigarette and takes big gulps from a martini glass.
Despite these headwinds, I liked it. O’Hara, d’Arcy James and director Michael Greif have deftly put on a domestic, behind-closed-doors musical without any cheesy Lifetime Original sap. (This production is not so emotionally loud, unlike another Greif-ical, “Next to Normal.”) It’s simply staged — albeit in too big of a theater — and appropriately distressing.
To call “Days of Wine and Roses” entertaining would be wrong, yet it’s unquestionably absorbing thanks to its fine actors.
Joe (James), a p.r. bigwig, and Kirsten (O’Hara), a secretary, meet and flirt at an office soiree. Later at a bar, party-hardy Joe convinces “I don’t like the taste” Kirsten to try a Brandy Alexander (a creamy cognac thing) and thus begins their alcohol-fueled relationship.
One night, they get married while tipsy, much to the dismay of Kirsten’s disapproving florist father (Byron Jennings), and later on have a daughter.
As the soused spouses become more reliant on the sauce, they get meaner and endanger each other and their child, who’s forced to grow up too quickly.
An amusing contrast is that “Days of Wine and Roses” is some of the ugliest acting O’Hara has ever done on Broadway — no enchanted evenings or whistling of happy tunes here — while it’s also the prettiest James has sounded.
One partner will get clean while the other is drinking nonstop, and that’s when the viciousness cranks up to full blast. That audiences are accustomed to an angelic O’Hara is what makes her character’s braying, tantrum-filled downturn here so upsetting.
James’ Joe starts out sleazy and eventually gets his act together. That’s when he sings a gorgeous number called “Forgiveness,” the show’s best song.
Guettel’s scores, such as “The Light in the Piazza” and “Floyd Collins,” always seem to have been composed for a target audience of music theory majors. Especially in this musical’s early scenes, the notes sound randomly assembled and verge on unpleasant.
However, there is a method to the madness. Guettel makes the pair’s binges lively, but he is careful not to let them fall into fun, like the jubilantly buzzed “If I Were a Bell” from “Guys and Dolls” or “We’ll Take a Glass Together” from “Grand Hotel.”
He composes their benders, the ghoulish shadows of a good time, as what a cacophonous blackout might sound like and he rightly fights against the sweeping cinematic sound of Henry Mancini’s nostalgic movie theme. You won’t remember any of the songs, but neither would somebody who downed two bottles of Jack Daniel’s.
That explanation will be cold comfort to ticket buyers looking for tunes. But, come on, nobody going to a musical about a husband and wife’s descent into alcoholism is waiting for “Shipoopi.”
I hope.