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| DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Last Night | |
| Posted by: sergius 06:49 am EDT 05/27/23 | |
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| A “why?” musical. Addiction stories are always the same story; their narrative arcs are rote. Nothing surprising or even interesting is likely to happen when the subject is substance abuse: ruin precedes either recovery or death. Guettel can’t work his way around this predictability in DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES. He’s clearly most interested in the struggle of recovery, and so he rushes to get to this part of the story where he lingers. In the process, the two main characters, both alcoholics, are ill defined and so it’s hard to feel much about them and their efforts to stop drinking. On paper, the stakes are high. But it doesn’t feel like it because the leads are under characterized; we don’t know them well enough to care very much about them. Additionally, Guettel’s score is hard to grasp. It billows lushly, but it’s indeterminate, sitting uncomfortably between an eddying song cycle and some more traditional musical theatre form. Still, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is a work of consistent intelligence and craft. And it’s beautifully performed. O’Hara, in particular, is expectably impeccable. She’s compelling throughout. | |
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| re: why? | |
| Posted by: kidmanboy 07:29 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
| In reply to: DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Last Night - sergius 06:49 am EDT 05/27/23 | |
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| On the way out of the theater during an early preview, I heard Guettel speaking to someone about his personal connection to the story and his own struggles with addiction. I think that is the “why” you seek. | |
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| re: DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Last Night | |
| Posted by: Delvino 12:54 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
| In reply to: DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Last Night - sergius 06:49 am EDT 05/27/23 | |
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| The clips at the Guettel website are substantial and compelling but support your takeaway. It’s hard to hear the story’s emotional stakes rise in the often halting, elliptical melodic lines. I thought "Forgiveness," in particular, stood out, and had some of the dark elegiac power of Floyd Collins, a score I continue to savor. Yet Collins offers a more imaginative theatrical conceit: entrapment in a cave delivering heart stopping unities. The episodic structure of Days feels too challenging to encapsulate in 90 minutes. | |
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| re: DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Last Night | |
| Posted by: falcon15 11:40 am EDT 05/28/23 | |
| In reply to: re: DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Last Night - Delvino 12:54 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
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| "Forgiveness" is a lovely song, immediately melodic and sweeping upon first hearing. That said, it feels like a song written for a different spot in an earlier draft of this show - it doesn't really seem to fit where D'Arcy James sings it, where it's immediately deflated afterwards by his scene partner saying, "That's bullshit." In context, it feels like hearing the title song of Piazza or "Fable," - aching, sincere, sweeping music - and then having a character immediately say, "You're lying to yourself." I love "In Buddy's Eyes," but "Forgiveness" does not seem to be written as anything but straightforward and heartfelt. |
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| re: DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Last Night | |
| Posted by: theaterisok 10:29 am EDT 05/27/23 | |
| In reply to: DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Last Night - sergius 06:49 am EDT 05/27/23 | |
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| Thank you for putting into words what I could not. The whole evening felt like a graduate thesis project in music theory. But the production and performances were wonderful. | |
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