REVIEW: Days of Wine and Roses

The ghost of Jack Lemmon has appeared twice on Broadway this season. First In Some Like It Hot, the adaptation of the 1959 film starring Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe which closed at the end of the year (and recently won a Grammy). Now in Days of Wine and Roses, a teleplay that became a  1962 film and earned Oscar nominations for Lemmon and Lee Remick. The latter, now a musical at Studio 54 in a limited engagement starring Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James, may earn Tony nominations for its stars, but unlike the former, this musical is in no way a comedy.

Days of Wine and Roses is the harrowing story of a couple trapped in alcohol addiction. Joe Clay is a PR executive in the Mad Men era of suits, cigarettes, and heavy drinking; Kirsten Arnesen is the boss’s secretary who succumbs to Joe’s romantic overtures and to the lure of liquor. Initially the liquor is liberating, but then they struggle to free its grip and become increasingly insular, essentially a third party in their marriage.  Not fun stuff.

This production, staged by Michael Greif, with music and lyrics by Adam Guettel and book by Craig Lucas, hews very close to the original, with large swaths of the script taken verbatim from the movie. It relies on the acting and singing prowess of the two stars. James, a Broadway veteran most recently seen as the Baker in Into the Woods, has a strong presence, both masculine and sensitive, worthy of Lemmon.

O’Hara is a Broadway treasure, with seven Tony nominations (and one win, for The King and I) and a supernal soprano voice. This role takes her into a far darker place than any of her others. With a blonde wig that recalls Remick, she personifies the 1960-ish woman trying to reconcile being a mother and housewife with the curse of alcoholism. While Joe comes to see it as a disease, Kirsten, influenced by her taciturn father, is convinced you just have to tough it out. Denial turns to tragedy as she loses her daughter in the process.

James and O’Hara have been friends for years (going back to Sweet Smell of Success in 2002), and their chemistry makes them totally credible as a couple. In their fun-loving early days, they dance together a la Astaire and Rogers, but the fun doesn’t last. Guettel’s score has some jazzy and juicy moments but few memorable melodies. It has an operatic quality, which makes O’Hara’s numbers seem like arias.

Guettel (the grandson of Richard Rodgers and son of Mary Rodgers) and Lucas worked together on The Light in the Piazza (which gave O’Hara her breakthrough Broadway role in 2005). Days of Wine and Roses, more than anything, is a showcase for her extraordinary talent. Of the show’s 18 numbers, she has 14, seven of them solos. Like her eight-year-old daughter, affectingly played Tabitha Lawing, you’ll never forget her as she leaves. 

(Photo by Joan Marcus 2024)