It’s probably a good thing there’s no intermission in Days of Wine and Roses, the musical adaptation of Blake Edwards’s 1962 film. The harrowing and hugely captivating Broadway production wastes no time diving into the toll that alcoholism takes on married couple Kirsten and Joe Clay, and it’s doubtful any audience member would be inclined to pony up for a mid-show sippy cup of Chardonnay. Director Michael Greif’s production is shot through with heartache and hangovers, and worth all the squirming in your seat.
Twenty-one years in the making, this version of the classic starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick incorporates music that manages to underscore the mood without watering down the story’s intensity. The songbook (music and lyrics by Adam Guettel) is full of minor keys and suffused with a darkness that is rare for a star-studded Broadway extravaganza (Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James carry the show). No matter how gorgeous the voice of O’Hara – who sings the majority of the tunes – nobody bursts into a larger-than-life medley. (Though a bouffant and bombed Kirsten’s manic and musical vacuum cleaning session comes pretty close.)
The script and songs bleed into one another, with plenty of opera-like sing-talking that strikes a smart and serious tone. For all their sophistication, these numbers are low-slung and moody, and likely won’t appear on your favorite Peloton instructor’s upcoming Showtunes-themed playlist.
Korean war vet turned PR dynamo Joe (played by James, who inhabits his role with mid-century machismo) meets spritely and initially Sprite-sipping Kirsten at a work event. When we first lay eyes on Joe, he is aboard a booze cruise filled with the smorgasbord of comely women he has arranged for his bosses’ pleasure. He homes in on the innocent and beautiful executive assistant.
Over dinner, he introduces her to the twin powers of male attention and Brandy Alexanders, which taste like the chocolate bars that had been her vice until now. “It makes you feel good,” he tells her. “I already feel good,” she retorts. But she takes the plunge, sip by sip, and starts to feel infinitely better. Until, well, you know how this goes.
Their love story takes little time in morphing into a tangle of codependence and torment. The underlying horror is offset by Lizzie Clachan’s snappy and chic set design that calls to mind Mad Men, and a parade of fabulous hairdos styled by hair and wig designer David Brian Brown.
While Kirsten and Joe are unraveling in the spotlight, supporting cast members dart by in the shadows, appearing as either nattily attired bartenders ready to freshen a cocktail or solitary men self-soothing with their flasks.
With only two possible landing points, stories of addiction can feel predictable, but O’Hara and James are an intoxicating tag team. They play their parts with bottomless feeling, and their addiction is matched with a reserve of love and forgiveness.
This is not a story of secret drinkers. Kirsten and Joe are in their own form of open marriage, ecstatically complicit in each others’ self-destruction. They have a daughter, Lila (the terrific Tabitha Lawing), but they only have eyes for their love triangle with themselves and anything 80 proof.
While such dramas tend to chart a familiar course, with a broken soul portrayed taking one wrong turn too many, Kirsten and Joe bring a novelty to the battle-with-the-bottle story. All the inevitable promises and relapses, the false starts and bleary-eyed lie-ins come with raw dialogue that cuts through the maudlin cliches.
Absent from the story is the overblown anger and disappointment that typically attends addiction dramas. When Joe finds Kirsten in a motel, where it appears she has been keeping company with a bottle of gin and other men, he is not let down. He just wants to find his way back to her. But “the world looks so dirty to me when I’m not drinking,” she says with such brokenness and clarity it’s hard to fault her for her choices.
Greif’s production soars above after-school special level “problem pieces” and serves up something equally sobering and zippy. The story ends in a heap of fragments and fissures. As we exited the theater, my date was simultaneously upset and electrified. “I’m not sure if I really want a drink or don’t have to want one for a very long time.”
