The plot could have easily been mistaken for a screwball comedy if not for the excessive drinking. Kirsten, a beautiful and tolerant lady with quick wit, meets Joe, a charming but arrogant man who needs to amp up his game if he wants to win her over. They meet in the 1950s in New York City, and Joe quickly serenades Kirsten with presumptuous romantic lyrics about a future together under a “chapel of stars.” She responds by bringing him back down to earth.
This is the premise of “Days of Wine and Roses,” a classic on addiction, those who have seen the teleplay, the 1958 JP Miller film adaptation with Piper Laurie and Cliff Robertson, or the 1962 version starring Lee Remick and Jack Lemmon, know what to expect. In this new version, a jazzy musical adaptation by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel, Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James play a glamorous, exquisite Kirsten and Joe, respectively. O’Hara, in particular, singing 14 of the show’s 18 melodies, of which seven are solos, fills the old Linda Gross Theater with delightful music.
“We are two people stranded at sea,” Kirsten and Joe sing simply and hauntingly in the prologue. They quickly fall in love, throwing down drinks at a party on a yacht in the East River, but while Kirsten is a teetotaler initially uninterested in alcohol, Joe is keen to coax her into drinking, so that she can become his drinking buddy. She succumbs, and their avalanche of alcohol begins. Kirsten’s father blames Joe for Kirsten’s fall, but it is the alcohol that is the real culprit in their lives.
Lucas and Guettel have been open about their personal struggles with substance abuse. They’ve eschewed the heavy-handedness of the previous versions of “Days of Wine and Roses” and traded it for a more nuanced exploration of the familial fallouts of addiction.
Lucas, the book’s author, and Guettel, the show’s music and lyrics creator, do sometimes presume that the audience knows the plot, and at other times steer away from that stereotype, venturing into emotional aridity. However, they capture the ecstasy that Kirsten and Joe experience in their insular world where the only invitees are them and alcohol.
Kirsten and Joe’s party has no need for Henry Mancini’s sweeping orchestra that scored the film; instead, Guettel creates a bright, fast and frenetic music with the cocktail-mixing song “Evanesce.” Their sandpaper percussion and playful heedlessness add to the feeling of being high, making sobriety more unimaginable even as their lives spiral out of control. Joe is a fully formed character, having just returned from the Korean War, but Kirsten is less fleshed out and seems oddly modern for the 1950s, leaving the show unanchored in time despite the 50s design used. Kirsten is conscious of the gender bias of her era, but the show doesn’t really take notice of it.
“Days of Wine and Roses” is compassionate in portraying Kirsten’s dependence on alcohol, and in one of her letters to her daughter she writes “Don’t give up on me. I’ll be home soon.” Kelli O’Hara’s performance is particularly impressive in this new version.
Days of Wine and Roses
Through July 16 at the Linda Gross Theater, Manhattan; atlantictheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.
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