There was once a play called The Days of Wine and Roses by J.P. Miller, and in 1962 it was filmed starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. Now, sixty years later, Adam Guettel has written music and lyrics for an adaptation that is just concluding an off-Broadway run of eight weeks at the Linda Grossman Theatre. Craig Lucas’ book sticks closely to the very moving story, and as it is sung through some twenty songs it becomes a play with music more than the more commonly called “musical”. Though it boasts a supporting cast of seven excellent actors to inhabit and deliver the friends, colleagues, and relatives, almost the entire score is acted and sung by the two central characters with the occasional inclusion of their daughter.
Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara in Days of Wine and Roses Ahron R. Foster
As the couple played by Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James, the results are memorable. These two artists, who have played everything from farce to tragedy in dozens of New York and national outings, have offered us a glimpse of what it means to be an onstage star in the manner of the theatre’s Golden Age. The public then was invited to revel in the work of Gertrude Lawrence, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Alfred Drake, Bert Lahr, John Raitt, Tallulah Bankhead, Katherine Cornell, Helen Hayes, the Lunts, Ruth Gordon and a dozen others whose names alone lit up the sky and could fill a theatre for an entire season. The years of television, movies, and streaming have now created instant stardom, but most of the magic seemed gone. Well, it came back yesterday at the Atlantic Theatre.
The audience that shared the matinee of The Days of Wine and Roses with me seemed to revel in what went on up there on the small but vital stage at the off Broadway Linda Gross Theatre. As Dr. Frankestein once shouted, “It’s alive!” Part of the pleasure came from the variety of the seven supporting players. Some of them covered several roles, all of them impeccably, and so convincingly that I honestly can’t tell you who played what. Byron Jennings made a vivid and unforgiving father to Kelli O’Hara’s character, but most of the others played whatever was required of them. Ella Dane Morgan handled Lila when that character turned seven in the later part of the play. She joined her mother and father in three of the musical moments and sang sweetly though she needs to watch her way clearly singing the lyrics.
I return, however, to the remarkable clarity with which Michael Greif’s direction keeps focus as the basically one-room set turns smoothly into street scenes, a hothouse, a bedroom, and more. And to D’arcy James and O’Hara who send us back into our own real worlds tremendously moved and–even more remarkably for a musical–provoked, disturbed, and engaged. I salute this company, its two leading players, and the theatre management for choosing and assembling this marvelous late addition to the 2023 season of New York theatre.