[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. We wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of two Broadway giants, Chita Rivera and Hinton Battle. This past Monday, three-time Tony Award-winning singer, dancer, and choreographer, Hinton Battle, died. As we went to air today, as of yet, no reasons were given for his death.

It was confirmed by his friend, an actress, Debbie Allen, who shared the news in a post on Instagram. Battle made his Broadway debut at age 15 in The Wiz in 1975 as the original Scarecrow. A revival of The Wiz is coming back to Broadway this spring. He earned Tony Awards for his roles in Sophisticated Ladies in 1981, The Tap Dance Kid in '83, and Miss Saigon in '91. Some of his other credits include Fosse's Dancin' and Chicago and Dream Girls, which led to a cameo in the 2006 film. Hinton Battle was 67 years old.

Singer, dancer, and actor, and legend, Chita Rivera, died yesterday, Tuesday, in New York at the age of 91. Her daughter announced she had suffered a brief illness. She was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero in Washington, DC and she got a ballet scholarship and came to New York and became a graduate of the George Balanchine School of American Ballet.

Rivera is most famous for originating the role of Anita in the 1957 Broadway production of West Side Story. In 1961, Rivera also originated the part of Rose in Broadway's Bye-Bye Birdie, which earned her her first of 10 Tony nominations. She played Velma Kelly in Chicago. In 1984, she won a Tony for Best Actress in a Musical for Anna in The Rink, and one again for Kiss of the Spider Woman in '93.

In 2018, Chita Rivera received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Tony's as one of the most nominated Broadway performers of all time. She was also the first Latina to receive a Kennedy Center Honor. Chita Rivera was formidable. In 1986, a horrible car accident almost ended her career, but she persevered. Following her passing yesterday, social media was flooded with remembrances including Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote, "She was magnificent. She is magnificent. Not ready for the past tense just yet."

We'll be blasting West Side Story and Bye Bye Birdie and Chicago, and so much music because she left us so much. Gracias, Chita. We join you, Lin, in blasting some music from Chita Rivera. Let's listen to her scene, this iconic number.

[MUSIC - Chita Rivera and Marilyn Cooper and Reri Grist: America]

Puerto Rico, you lovely island

Island of tropical breezes

Always the pineapples growing

Always the coffee blossom blowing

Puerto Rico, you ugly island

Island of tropic diseases

Always the hurricanes blowing

Always the population growing

And the money owing

And the babies crying

And the bullets flying

I like the island Manhattan

Smoke on your pipe and put that in

I like to be in America

Okay by me in America

Everything free in America

For a small fee in America

I like the city of San Juan

I know a boat you can get on

Hundreds of flowers in full bloom

Hundreds of people in each room

Automobile in America

Chromium steel in America

Wirespoke wheel in America

Very big deal in America!

I'll drive a Buick through San Juan

Alison Stewart: Now we have a little more theater news after a successful off-Broadway run. The dramatic musical Days of Wine and Roses based on the acclaimed 1962 film about an alcoholic couple's downward spiral opened on Broadway last weekend to glowing reviews for its leads, Kelli O'Hara and Brian d'Arcy James. The New York Times named it a critic's pick and called the actors' performances "superb."

The Washington Post review said, "O'Hara and d'Arcy James are preeminent interpreters of the subtleties of ordinary life." They play Joe and Kirsten. Joe is a charming public relations man who loves to have a good time along with his good friend Jack Daniels. He is instantly smitten with a bookish teetotaling secretary named Kirsten, who has never had a drink until she meets Joe. She warms up to both the man and the booze.

Kirsten and Joe marry, drink, begin their life together, drink, have a daughter named Lila, and drink. They spiral out of control, threatening their relationship and even their lives. Days of Wine and Roses features a score from composer and lyricist, Adam Guettel, and is directed by Michael Greif. It is now at the Studio 54 Theater through April 28th, 2024. We spoke to O'Hara, d'Arcy James, and Greif when the show debuted at the Atlantic Theater. In honor of the show's big opening, we thought we'd revisit the conversation. I began by asking Kelli O'Hara what attracted her to the role of Kirsten.

Kelli O'Hara: My parents raised me on these types of films, and I watched it somewhere in high school. The character and the story are very personal to me. Also, I like telling these types of stories and just the human condition and finding the human qualities in someone that you might not necessarily understand and trying to find ways to give them sympathetic qualities. This is exactly what I was looking for.

Alison Stewart: Michael, I was Googling around to look for the trailer for the film, and the trailer is really interesting that you'll see online because it's a little bit of the film, but it's Jack Lemmon who spends a good minute or two addressing the audience about the seriousness of the subject matter. Although he never really says it. I think that is indicative of the times, exactly what's happening. I'm wondering what you think is still relevant about this story?

Michael Greif: I think everything about it is sadly still very relevant. I think problems of addiction are very much with us. I think stories about family dysfunction, about lonely people trying to find a way to be seen and to create a fulfilling life, ways in which we all strive to be better parents and better partners. I think everything about it is still extremely relevant.

Alison Stewart: When you're adapting something like this, Michael, with legends like Jack Lemmon in it-- There's of course that famous scene where Joe is drunkenly destroying the greenhouse. Michael, how did you approach some of these more famous moments in the film and translating them to the stage? What were your guidelines for yourself?

Michael Greif: Before I need to translate those things, I'm very much dependent on the rest of the creative team, my creative partners, the incredible Adam Guettel and the incredible Craig Lucas, who did such an extraordinary job distilling down both the screenplay from 1962 and the teleplay that was earlier. I'm sure Craig also looked very much at the play that Miller wrote after the teleplay, although I haven't seen that.

My job was really to interpret or create some bridge to an audience, a bridge from the way in which Adam and Craig already chose to distill that material. I think you'll find an amazing set piece like that episode in the film when Joe destroys that greenhouse is extraordinarily depicted in the musical through Adam's extraordinary song that he gives Joe at that key moment in his development/descent.

Alison Stewart: Brian, what's something that you've come to understand about alcoholism and addiction that has helped you understand this character of Joe better?

Brian d'Arcy James: A lot. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is grace. In terms of trying to find one's own path and one's own relationship with addiction. Trying to fight it and overcome it, and finding the strength on a daily basis to allow oneself to feel successful or to recognize their deficiency and not see it as the totality of themselves, but rather one step in hopefully a positive direction. The minuscule dots of a progression of events that make up this path, this struggle, this fight, this life. I certainly have albeit through an imaginative process and a means by which I've been able to try to understand this disease and this particular character who's struggling with it, I certainly have a different view on what it's perhaps like.

Alison Stewart: Kelli, because the show is set in the '50s, we have a different understanding of a few different things on different levels. One is the difference. We think about alcoholism as a disease now. A, it was only founded 15, 20 years before the time that this takes place. Not to mention the role of women at that time. For your character, how does this time period impact her, impact her choices, and impact the way you chose to bring her to life?

Kelli O'Hara: I always am very cognizant of understanding that lens and where she was and who she was and what her opportunities might have been. How she and Joe meet in a business where he's one of the top players, and I'm a secretary of course. What that might do to a woman at the time who has a lot to give and probably didn't have the opportunity to go to college and things like that.

One of the things that is so human to me about this character and the way our writers have written her is that it's really timeless to me. The way I feel about her being a mother myself, being a career person myself. I put the two things together, but at some point, the era disappears. That's an unfortunate thing to say as well because it should feel like a very ancient thing to think that this woman wouldn't have gone to school, and she would've been a little bit depleted in her potential, in her opportunities.

I feel like she had a fire then, and she would now, and that wasn't always stoked. The thing about addiction and alcoholism to me, especially for her character, is I don't blame it on just the circumstances of her life and the era that she's living. I don't blame it on anything. Except to say that this was probably always, this is who she is. I like to think about what she might do in the future, past our show. I like to think about what she might've experienced as a child. That all to me feels like it's of a world that is today as much as it was then. Then I put all those things together, of course, yes. The era isn't as much a part of my journey.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing Days of Wine and Roses, playing at the Linda Gross Theater through July 9th. My guests are actors, Brian d'Arcy James, and Kelli O'Hara, as well as director Michael Greif. This is a question for all three of you, but I'll start with you, Michael. I was interviewing Director Thomas Vinterberg. He came to talk to us about his movie, Another Round, which is also about a group of men who become alcoholics. He was talking about the challenges of helping his actors play drunk in the various stages of being drunk.

Michael, tell us a little bit about the direction you gave your actors in the beginning of the play when they're socially drinking and as their drinking progressed. How you talked to them about physicality and then Kelli and Brian, you can dive in.

Michael Greif: I didn't have to say very much to the very exquisite Kelli O'Hara or Brian d'Arcy James. My job is much, much, much easier when I'm working with extraordinary talents and when we're all working with extraordinary material. I think both Kelli and Brian brought in some real history and some real instincts about what alcohol did for their relationship at various points along the story. I got to be an editor.

I got to shape things slightly. I got to point out what an audience needs to see in terms of an arc or a process. This was an unbelievable feast for me. It really was an extraordinary three-week little incubator period where we were rehearsing this play in a small room. Just watching the way both Kelli and Brian approach this material was a great lesson for me as what not to do as a director, how to stay out of the way, how to become helpful at appropriate times, and really be patient and let the actors illuminate me.

Alison Stewart: Kelli, how did you approach it? How did you approach Kirsten's the way alcohol affects her in the beginning of the show, and then as it progresses?

Kelli O'Hara: To talk about it and to put too much technical aspect on it or something is for me gets in the way because I feel like it's more about just taking a breath and dropping into something that you know. That you know well, that you've seen, that you've experienced. I think we all are touched by this. I think we all have something that we go to. If you just go to the back of your mind. Brian and I don't think ever want to be caricatures of some comedic or humiliating or caricaturist version of a drunk person. I think when my relationship to this behavior is brought to top of my mind it never feels funny. The freedom of dropping into something very human and something very sincere is always my goal.

To be honest, it's probably very different every night, or at least in my mind. Because it's just about blowing the breath out and just sitting in something that might be more real than technically produced.

Alison Stewart: How are you feeling about that, Brian? The idea of the way that Joe is physically in the beginning, it's very noticeable as an audience member. That's the difference

Brian d'Arcy James: That's good. I think that there's definitely an outside-in and an inside-out approach to these characters in terms of capturing those things that you recognize when someone is, their trajectories are off or their ballistics are off in terms of how they move, et cetera. There's an interesting balance of theatricality and naturalism that is required, I think, to tell the story.

I go back to what Michael's saying about the editing quality. I did have a big fear of appearing like plain drunk. All you can really do is explore and experiment with what that means to you in terms of your own experience, your own observations, et cetera. Then trust that your exceptional, very skilled, incredible director is going to say, "Hey, let's come back over here for this moment, or let's accelerate here for this moment." Yes, that's good. That's maybe not so good. That's where the collaboration is so key. I'm so grateful for.

Ultimately story to me, in this particular version of this tale of a love story and addiction, the story supersedes and informs how not only the characters are feeling it, but also how the audience I think is watching and investing in and digesting what these characters are going through.

Alison Stewart: Brian, why does Joe want her to have a drink so very badly at the very top of the show?

Brian d'Arcy James: At the outset, it's just his reflexive way of connecting. It is just a natural way of making some kind of connection, which ultimately I think is the underlying story here of just wanting to love and be loved, and seeing a spark and recognizing something in Kirsten that blossoms into this incredible, incredible, beautiful love story. Alcohol for him is the way to ignite that flame. Just to see what kind of Fun with a capital F they can have together with his assistant. His assistant being alcohol, not his assistant.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Right. Kelli, why does Kirsten-- we get why she takes the first drink. Why does she take the second one?

Kelli O'Hara: She likes it. She likes it, and she likes danger. I've thought a lot about why she hasn't taken that drink yet, but there's been other things that have satisfied certain desires in herself. She also is leaning toward this man in a way that is different than she has before. Honestly, I think she's not afraid of taking a drink. She hasn't needed to until this moment, or she hasn't chosen to until this moment. She does, she likes it, and then she likes it even more. Then it actually accompanies the falling in love with this man too. It accompanies it and then it feeds it and the two feed each other.

I think that's a very typical process when relationships happen. The alcohol becomes the third member of the relationship. This is what they know together. That's sometimes why it's so difficult to remove that element. It's fascinating and I've done a lot of thinking about the quick fall, but I also find that we're in very safe hands with these writers and the knowledge that we all have in this room. You might have questions of, somebody would never do that this way, but human beings are all different. We're not a monolith of the same behavior, and we do things differently. This particular woman is she leaps quickly and falls quickly.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing Days of Wine and Roses which is playing at the Linda Gross Theater through July 9th. My guests are actors, Brian d'Arcy James and Kelli O'Hara in the lead roles as Joe and Kirsten. Michael Greif, the director is joining us as well. We should talk about the score, Adam Guettel's score. Michael, what is something in this score that you haven't seen before or you haven't heard before, that when you heard it or you discussed it with him, you thought, "Oh, wow, that's unusual. That's new to me."

Michael Greif: What's very new to me is the range of expression. Honestly, spending time with Brian and Kelli, it's changed my ears and it's made me hungry for sounds and singing that I haven't been hungry for before. Adam's score and the range of that score and the way it tests these incredible actor-singers constantly is very exciting. Something I've been more familiar with is lyrics and how the story is told through lyrics. I've always found Adam's lyrics to be so specific and so extraordinary, and get to the heart of a metaphor or an emotion in the most unexpected but also the most authentic ways.

Then I've always been so impressed with how Craig has provided a foundation, something that happens in dialogue before that lyric is introduced. There's a seamlessness between the book and the score in this musical, that I just find very, very, very thrilling and satisfying.

Alison Stewart: There's a refrain that comes up again, two people stranded at sea, two people stranded. Sometimes it's sung very sadly. Sometimes, it's upbeat. We actually pulled a clip of a demo recorded by Adam Guettel of the song Evanesce, so you can get a sense of it. Let's take a listen.

[MUSIC - Adam Guettel Featuring Kelli O’Hara & Brian D’Arcy James: Evanesce]

Ba-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo

Two people stranded at sea

Two people stranded are we

Are

We

Are

Sometimes I feel like I'm a dowser in the desert

With all this water everywhere

With all this water everywhere

Flying through the ocean

Swimming in the air

I'm dazzled in the desert

And I don't really care

I don't care

'cause I have

You now

You are

All I need!

Two dolphins breakin' a wave

Two dolphins right to the grave

Alison Stewart: Kelli, what's something you admire about this score?

Kelli O'Hara: Oh my goodness, what do I not admire about it? My first real home in this business after moving here was doing Light in the Piazza with Adam. I wanted more of it, and Craig, both of them. I wanted more of that book to lyric, to melody, communicative relationship that was just seems so freeing and naturalistic. I come from a classical background, so for me, the challenging music feels really right, but the way Adam does it and the way he sets things. An emotional word might come with such an emotional note, and so what you feel is this great connect with your actual body, this great power in that.

It was the same for Piazza and his other things that I've done. Migratory V and things from Myths and Hymns. To just have more of that is what I wanted, and here we are. He definitely is respecting the era. You have a very jazzy element to this, and then you go into a just heartbreaking more classic element of certain moments. You have lullaby moments to bring in the family, the child, the heart, the warmth, this wonderful edition of a song called Water-- what is the name of it? Water in the Stone? The actual title, Brian.

Brian d'Arcy James: Yes, that's it.

Kelli O'Hara: [chuckles] What you have is you have these singular moments throughout the show, that match the emotion. For me, it is the greatest type of storytelling, because it flows as if the heart flows. The emotions rise. That whole break-into-song element feels like a totally elevated version of that. No one writes like Adam Guettel. I have waited for a long time to get back to him. It is like I was born to sing his music and I am forever grateful for that. It feels very, very at home for me.

Alison Stewart: Brian--

Brian d'Arcy James: Can I just add one thing?

Alison Stewart: Oh, please.

Brian d'Arcy James: I'm so sorry. Just real quickly, I wanted to say that the phrase that comes to mind for me with Adam's score is in his lyric, secret language that these two characters share. It's repeated a couple times. I feel like the score is a representation of this-- you're peering into this language that these two people are speaking that is just unto themselves and somehow universal at the same time. There's something really wildly evocative about it because it's oftentimes you don't quite understand this language that they share and only they share, and yet I think it's thrilling to see that union of sorts through the score and the music.

Alison Stewart: What do you think a musical can do with really distressing or upsetting subject matter that maybe a play can't?

Michael Greif: I think music unlocks an access to the emotions. I think we're all aware that a song or a piece of music can take us someplace emotionally, that even the most beautiful poetry doesn't. I feel it's that emotional access that's most beneficial, that's most unique in telling these kinds of stories in a musical form. I think Oprah figured that out a long time ago, and we are just beginning to see the best ways in which we can unite the beauty of operatic music and really good storytelling.

Alison Stewart: That was part of my conversation with Director Michael Greif and actors Kelli O'Hara and Brian d'Arcy James. The Days of Wine and Roses is now open on Broadway and a limited engagement at Studio 54.

 

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