Girls, I went to see it, last Wednesday afternoon, at the Regal Cinema at 14th Street and Union Square. Having heard so many ambivalent comments about this, I walked into the theater expecting a three-and-a-quarter hour pity party. The kind only I myself would have invited myself to.
But I was wrong. "The Hours" is not a pity party, but an examination of the human condition. I am still. on the fence that Stephen Daldry's film twenty years ago is so hypnotic and magnetic, it is almost operatic in itself, along with the Philip Glass score. So, writing about this interpretation of "The Hours" is a bit difficult for me, an opera novice. I am certain to be attacked by Vicious Opera Queens, so I say to them, quoting Charles Bickford in "The Song Of Bernadette--" "Load well your guns. For your path lies over my dead body.
The problem with "The Hours" is it being both promising and problematic. Let's start with the first. Assembled on stage are three of the finest working female voices of our time in roles they are perfectly cast in. One cannot begin to compare them to the film's trio--Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, and Julianne Moore--because the operatic virtuosity of the work transcends even the film.
Two--Renee Fleming and Kellie O'Hara--come from Broadway (Remember, Fleming earned a TONY Nomination for her Nettie Fowler, in the 2018 revival of "Carousel." When she sang "You'll Never Walk Alone," there wasn't a dry eye in the house.) Fleming has any number of fine moments--"Here On This Corner," her scene with the suicidal Richard, (wonderfully sung by Kyle Ketelsen), and the end, which will become a classic, the "Final Trio." Fleming and O'Hara score high in this, not only because I know their work, but because the voices are so searingly beautiful and connect with material, both on a vocal and dramatic level. These are not just singers, but actresses.
Joyce DiDonato, an unknown to me, inhabits the character of Virginia Woolf as ably as her co-stars. Her moment, "If The End Is Here," and her scenes with husband Leonard (well sung by Sean Panikkar) are moving and heartbreaking, and DiDonato, like everyone else, breathes an actress' soul into a singing part, so that she, too inhabits, more than interprets.
The other stars of "The Hours" are the creative team of director Phelim McDermott, and choreographer Annie-B. Parson, who have made the piece into a haunting tapestry by using chorus singers, dancers, and even children, to underscore the story's themes and the internal conflicts of its three protagonists. Which overrides the major problem of the show--Kevin Puts' music. Oh, it is haunting enough, but I missed potentially melodic strains. Save for the aforementioned moments, I heard strains where the music could have gone somewhere but Puts chose not to. Even Kal Edgar, a sixth grader, playing the role of Laura Brown's young son Richie, has to bow to this atonal style. That he does it so clearly and beautifully speaks much for his ability and talent.
I am glad I saw "The Hours," and it simply transported me, but, girls, the sad truth is that without a cast of such magnitude, many would not be interested in performing it. Or even listening to a CD, because of that music. Go ahead, Vicious Opera Queens, here is where you attack me. That this splendid production has been preserved on film guarantees it some kind of life, and if a DVD is issued, I would urge those yet to see it take in a viewing. A cast such as this would be difficult to assemble again; a lesser cast would not be acceptable.
So, darlings, that is my take on "The Hours." Would I see this production again? Yes, in a heartbeat. Still, it is frustrating to know this cast could take it in a different and better direction, musically, yet this is what they were stuck with, meritorious as they are.
To borrow from Virginia Woof, Music, like language, is "wine upon the lips."
"The Hours" is a transportive work, whose results are both flavorful in some areas, not so in others.
Should it be seen? Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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