Days of Wine and Roses, in both its original 1958 teleplay and famous 1962 movie versions, is about battling addiction. By contrast, the musicalization that has just opened at Studio 54 is about the appeal of addiction: the ways in which people are drawn into the orbit of controlled substances (alcohol in this case) and why they stay put thereafter. Within that not-so-small distinction lie many of the strengths of this bold reinterpretation, as well as a justification for revisiting the familiar material in the present national moment.
Anyone familiar with Mad Men will immediately recognize the musical’s three-martini-lunch, sexist milieu of 1950’s Manhattan, featuring Joe Clay, the up-and-coming P.R. man played by Jack Lemmon in ’62 and Brian d’Arcy James today. His bosses clearly think of public relations as fostering intimate relations, and a regimen of procuring female companionship for clients sends him into paroxysms of self-disgust. As if that weren’t enough impetus for late-night benders, he was orphaned in a train crash not long ago, and librettist Craig Lucas assigns him a recent troubled stint in the Korean War (current expert opinion has it that military personnel PTSD is highly correlated with addiction).
It’s no surprise that Joe should be drawn to the deepest thinker in the steno pool, fetching Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick on film; Kelli O’Hara now). She’s a voracious poetry reader and knowledge seeker who’s never so much as tasted a beer. When Joe introduces her to chocolatey Brandy Alexanders, it’s unclear whether it’s just “the thing to do” or because he secretly craves a romantic drinking buddy. Unfortunately, her strict Norwegian upbringing has masked a need to act out and seek fun-fun-fun, or “the human desire to penetrate the unknown” as she calls it. Brandy Alexander gives way to Johnnie Walker, and soon the codependent Clays are caught up in a deadly spiral that will leave Joe demoted and then fired, and Kirsten rootless and resentful.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The movie details Joe’s efforts to get clean, a process radically reduced here. We don’t see the D.T.’s that put him in a straitjacket, nor do we accompany him to any A.A. meetings. Indeed, the phrase “A.A.” is never mentioned, though we can sense his working out the 12 Steps with the aid of sponsor Jim (David Jennings in a strong performance, despite being given some of JP Miller’s creakiest platitudes to speak). Joe’s gaining sobriety seems rather abrupt here, and he becomes considerably less compelling (as he did in the movie) once the focus turns to Kirsten’s adamant resistance to taking restorative action.
These changes suggest that Lucas and composer-lyricist Adam Guettel want, more than anything else, to explore why the Joes and Kirstens of the world get hooked and stay hooked in the first place.
Guettel is unsurpassed in granting musical expression to extravagant emotion, as we know from “Floyd Collins” and “The Light in the Piazza.” Here the rhythms of ’50s jazz duke it out with exquisitely climbing, soaring notes to convey the chaotic, bipolar play of ideas and images when one becomes infused with booze. And in O’Hara and d’Arcy James – who among the cast are assigned virtually all the singing – he has two of our finest musical theater talents at the peak of their powers, pulling out all the stops.
In “Evanesce,” the newlyweds croon, scat, belt, and dance a celebratory soft-shoe, even as their lyrics – “I’m leaning out the window / I’m running with a knife / I’m riding on an arrow / I’m running for my life” – allude to the danger they’re courting. Later, a lonely, bibulous Kirsten engages in a duet with her Hoover vacuum leaving the living room worse off as she answers the musical question “Are You Blue”: “Hell no! Not me! / I’m a bright and shiny top / And I live on booze and bebop.” But soon enough, she is describing to Lila a place called “Underdeath…. My girl, your mommy goes there every day.” When a newly-sober Joe urges her to join him, she hits him with both barrels: “You convert / You devil, you betray me / You told me we were in this forever / You con man!”
This is tough stuff, though the stars make it seem as easy as breathing – or, I guess, as easy as downing multiple shots in a heartbeat. Guettel has never been one to send audiences out humming his melodies, and here he is most interested in sending his stars up and down the scale. Still, when he wants to write a show song rather than an art song he’s more than capable. “First Breath,” in which a temporarily on-the-wagon Kirsten seeks succor from her stern papa (Byron Jennings, excellent), could easily become a cabaret standard.
Director Michael Greif gets assured performances from principals and ensemble alike, and the design team maintains a sense of time, place and cinematic fluidity, particularly through Lizzie Clachan’s sleek signage and platforms, and Ben Stanton’s expressionistic lighting effects piercing the dark like the knives Joe and Kirsten are all too eager to wield on each other. Choreographers Sergio Trujillo (Ain’t Too Proud) and Karla Puno Garcia don’t have a lot to do, but good for them if they contributed to the production’s elegant ease.
Understanding the roots of dependency starts by acknowledging that people do drugs – drink booze, take opiates, smoke, shoot up – because it feels better doing them than not doing them. So it is for Joe and Kirsten Clay, and by not shying away from the good vibrations that controlled substances promise, this new Days of Wine and Roses is a small step in the right direction toward making a difference in America’s current addiction crisis. Which is not to say that very many opioid addicts are likely to find their way to a Lucas/Guettel musical; but those who make public policy, or who simply look down their noses at “those people in the red states,” very well may. Developing sympathy for, and taking steps to help, the growing numbers of those struggling with and dying of addiction begins by recognizing that some of “those people” are no further away than the house or apartment next door.
Days of Wine and Roses opened January 28, 2024, at Studio 54 and runs through April 28. Tickets and information: daysofwineandrosesbroadway.com
