Review- The Daly News

For all we’ve heard lately about The Greatest Generation, we’ve not seen anything like The Daly News, Jonathan Gillard Daly’s affectionate look at his elders. A terrific family story that balances sweet nostalgia with the pungent bite of history, it’s a blend of newsreel and USO show, but never strays far from its roots as post-Sunday-dinner conversation.
From 1943-46, Daly’s grandfather Martin collected the news of his far-flung children (it was war time) and sent it back to them in the form of a family newsletter, The Daly News. And part of the great joy here is Martin’s written voice—an affectionate wisenheimer whose good-natured jabs and dry wit barely conceal the real pain of fear and family separation.
While Martin’s news could have made a powerful one-man show, Daly has expanded it into a chamber musical of sorts—a winning decision. The music, by Gregg Coffin and Larry Delinger, not only gives depth to the story’s emotions (particularly in the show’s lovely ballads), but also takes us back to the war years, when the music was both brash and sentimental. It’s performed beautifully by Daly, Jack Forbes Wilson and Jef Schaetzke.
But The Daly News is not the mere remembrance of things past. It cuts deeper than the typical nostalgia about the war years by suggesting the distance between generations, even as it honors The Greatest. For Jonathan Daly, The Daly News, is about loss as well as discovery. Even as he and the actors live inside the play’s delicate memories, there’s always the wistfulness of what might have been, and what’s lost as the flesh and blood of real life recedes into memory.