So I've heard rumours that Marianne Elliot's Company-with-a-female- Bobby will star Rosalie Craig and Patti LuPone, and will be going into the Gielgud ...
Quote from: Leighton on Sep 21, 2017, 03:20 PMSo I've heard rumours that Marianne Elliot's Company-with-a-female- Bobby will star Rosalie Craig and Patti LuPone, and will be going into the Gielgud ...
Have you seen the bloody pricing?
Minimum £79.50 in the Stalls and Dress and even £49.50 up in the Grand where if memory serves the seating and view is pretty awful, so I rather think that this particular production will not make it onto my calendar in 2018!
We paid top price £60 something for Follies which is about my upper limit and then you know that you'll be comfortable and have good sight lines; regular West End theatres are so hit and miss comfort-wise so I will have to take a pass on Patti's Joanne.
I would also whisper ..."Patti Lupone, really?". It's probably a bums-on-seats thing but to my mind it is hardly inspired casting - that is not to criticise Miss L as I'm sure she'll be great, but it is kind of safe and obvious casting isn't it?
My memory of Sheila Gish at the Donmar will therefore remain intact!
Quote from: Gordonb on Sep 22, 2017, 04:50 AMI would also whisper ..."Patti Lupone, really?". It's probably a bums-on-seats thing but to my mind it is hardly inspired casting - that is not to criticise Miss L as I'm sure she'll be great, but it is kind of safe and obvious casting isn't it?
It probably is. With a female Bobby/Bobbie maybe they felt the need to make a more "traditional" or "comfortable" casting choice so as to not scare away potential audience members.
I LOVED Sheila Gish. That pricing is insane
Ms LuPone does a good job with "ladies who lunch". See the Sondheim 80th birthday bash in NYC. Stritch sang "I'm Still Here" and wore a hat. Then LuPone sang "Ladies who Lunch". Does anyone still wear a hat? got a laugh. Its a great show overall with B Peters and Mandy Patinkin singing from Sunday in the Park and LuPone, George Hearn and Michael Cervais (Spelling?) :-* doing Sweeny Todd.
Interesting interview with Elliott posted on the Facebook FTC group, from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/sep/16/marianne-elliott--interview-company-sondheim
The more I hear about this, the more fascinated I am:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/theater/company-west-end-stephen-sondheim-marianne-elliott.html
I'm hoping the gender-swapping proves to be as fertile a notion as they keep making it sound, Elliott in particular: after months of armchair speculation on FB wherein even supporters of the idea (including myself) usually end up -- presumably unintentionally -- making it sound more than a bit labored and stunt-ish, she herself manages to argue her case in a way that seems both intuitively obvious and inevitable.
...And hoping also, of course, that the results will be good enough to prompt a NYC transfer.
Posted on the FB group:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG_Flbb3ZDU
Includes a teaser of the all-male "You Could Drive A Person Crazy," and a few of the lyric changes in "Someone Is Waiting" (for which Rosalie Craig is in lovely voice).
And, of course, Ms. LuPone cutting glass with her stare.
Reviews are in:
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Review-Roundup-Critics-Weigh-In-On-Marianne-Elliotts-COMPANY-on-the-West-End-20181017
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/theater/sondheim-company-london.html
The reviews for the production have been stunning and I wish we could see it (though I comfort myself by remembering that we got to see Follies at the National last fall).
Just booked myself a ticket for Friday 15th Feb 2019!
I almost started a separate thread for Documentary Now!'s Original Cast Recording: Co-Op;
Then considered instead starting one for the original Pennebaker documentary (and posting this on it);
Then finally decided to just put it here, even though the focus thus far has been on Marianne Elliott's current West End Company.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/theater/original-cast-album-co-op-mulaney-meyers-sondheim.html
I don't know whether SJS was doing his finest deadpan on purpose, or whether he's just edited to sound that way, but it's a hoot.
And Mulaney has my heartfelt admiration for revering a rhyme I had somehow either missed (??) or forgotten about for three decades until he pointed it out in this interview: "going/Boeing". How in f**k I managed to do ...whichever of those things... is anybody's guess.
:-[
Quote from: Leighton on Oct 26, 2018, 09:58 AMJust booked myself a ticket for Friday 15th Feb 2019!
Are you going to tell us what you thought? I have to confess that I've listened to the cast recording (just a couple of times so far) and I'm not loving it - particularly Rosalie Craig's vocals. Also, I suppose because I know the score so well, I'm finding the changes quite jarring. I'm sure that if I had seen the production I would feel differently!
Loved it! So much so I can't really remember anything I disliked (and Craig sounded great to me :) )
Quote from: Leighton on Feb 28, 2019, 12:28 PMLoved it! So much so I can't really remember anything I disliked (and Craig sounded great to me :) )
That's good to hear. I think I had the hump with the production as soon as I saw the ticket prices,and I wasn't smitten with the idea of another Patti 'Ladies Who Lunch" (also because I knew I wouldn't get to see it).
So I am glad that I was wrong in all counts and will need to listen again.
God, I wish Amy and I could see this, though at least we got to see the new production of Follies when it was at the National. I suppose it's too much to ask that this production could tour outside of London, yes? Though it wouldn't be the first production imported to New York from the West End. (Is the National considered part of the West End? From over here in the States, the entire London theater scene looks like one big version of Broadway.)
The National in and of itself isn't a West End house though they are close! There are rumours of it coming to Broadway (have been for months) with Anne Hathaway in the lead!
Ooh, I hadn't heard the Hathaway rumor, though I know there's been speculation about recasting Bobbie for B'way. But I have to say: on the basis of the London cast recording, I'm more taken with Craig than I expected to be, so I'd be just as happy if they brought her over.
Ben Brantley finally weighed-in last week, as enthusiastic as his colleagues were last fall:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/theater/company-caroline-or-change-reviews-london.html
And as long as they're (presumably) bringing Company over here anyway, could someone please stow the Playhouse Theatre Caroline, or Change in their luggage as well? My self-righteous-fanboy hunch is that Brantley's rave has as much to do with him taking fifteen years to FINALLY catch up to Caroline's greatness* as with anything particularly revelatory about the current cast or staging. But he does succeed in making the Playhouse revival sound mighty nice.
(And never mind that I've yet to see any staging of it myself, knowing the show thus far solely by its libretto and the OBCR, which I bought -- and promptly fell in love with -- a few months after the show closed on Broadway in 2004. To this day, I could kick myself for having missed it, both there and in its prior run at the Public; but for what it's worth, about half of that original production is viewable on YouTube in clips (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5507354B26A0A5C3) of not-great, but watchable quality).
____________________
* Yeah, yeah: "admirable" and all that. I mean, better than not -- and if the original reviewers hadn't more-or-less unanimously conceded at least that speck of semi-approval (grudging or backhanded as it may have been), it would officially have been time to pronounce American theatre criticism an irredeemable wasteland. But Caroline has always been a masterpiece to rank up there with anything of Sondheim's; and, as with his work, to dismiss Kushner/Tesori's as loftily cerebral -- or even, in their case, politically overdetermined -- is to have missed the boat by a comically wide margin. Just my two pennies (see what I did there?).
I saw it at the National - with Tonya Pinkins in the original staging - and this version at the Hampstead (it's second of three homes) and adored both productions. I think I may have preferred this more recent staging. Caroline or Change might be my favourite musical
I remember briefly entertaining fantasies of booking a flight expressly to see that production, with Pinkins, in either its NT or its California run post-Broadway. It might even have been technically possible, though certainly not financially advisable, at the time... but I sorta wish I had.
On the other hand, maybe someday I'll get to design a production of Caroline and it'll turn out to have been a blessing in disguise -- as with the NT's (and subsequently LCT's) Carousel a decade before -- not to have that original staging stuck in my head. Riccardo Hernández's design registers only rather vaguely in the YouTube clips, due to fuzzy video, low lighting, and sometimes tight-ish framing; but even so, there are two exquisite images I'd be hard-pressed not to steal: the Moon, especially as revealed through parting tree branches at the bus stop; and the firmament of coins surrounding her in "Roosevelt Petrucius Coleslaw".
This recent production's design was gorgeous, and very different!
It certainly looks to have been, in photos at least: http://www.flydavisdesign.com/productions/caroline-or-change/
I've been studying these pics with some ambivalence, but they're growing on me. Any reservations aside, I still want someone to bring the production to Broadway (or Off-). After fifteen years, Caroline is due for a revival here, and this one does look very interesting.
And the various video (http://www.playbill.com/video/lots-wife) clips, including a generous 30 minutes of rehearsal footage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QJhLxgFBck), speak very well indeed for the performances.
One thing that excites me about this production is precisely that it does seem "very different" from George C. Wolfe's original staging -- and while I imagine (on admittedly limited evidence, having seen neither in the flesh) that I could probably find quibbles as well as praise for both versions, it's thrilling just to hear that this work can sustain such diverse interpretations.
I was fantasizing earlier today about hopping a flight to see both Follies and Company before the latter closes on the 30th. And then it occurred to me that, had I had this brilliant idea months ago, I could have caught Caroline as well (and likely found a flight and/or accommodations cheap enough to keep the whole thing from being as financially reckless as it would be if I were to actually attempt it -- even for just the two Sondheim shows -- starting at this late date).
:-[
15 years? My goodness!
That long video is great - hadn't seen it before!
Back on topic and just for the record in case anyone didn't know, Company won Olivier awards for Best Musical Revival, Best Supporting Actor in a Musical, Best Supporting Actress in a Musical, and Best Set Design. :)
So has there been any official word about a broadway transfer? I desperately want to see this but it's nearly impossible for me to get to London right now.
Quote from: Jenniferlillian on Apr 09, 2019, 04:10 AMSo has there been any official word about a broadway transfer? I desperately want to see this but it's nearly impossible for me to get to London right now.
Too late! It closed March 30th. There's not been any announcement about a transfer but I'm sure that it will happen. I suspect the powers-that-be are arguing about the casting. Patti seemed to imply that it needed to transfer with Rosalie Craig; no Craig, no LuPone perhaps?
Coming to Broadway next spring, to open on SJS's 90th birthday:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/theater/broadway-company-sondheim-elliott-katrina-lenk-patti-lupone.html
...with Katrina Lenk as Bobbie, and LuPone reprising her Joanne.
The full cast has been announced:
http://www.playbill.com/article/matt-doyle-jennifer-simard-christopher-fitzgerald-will-join-katrina-lenk-and-patti-lupone-in-broadways-company-revival (http://www.playbill.com/article/matt-doyle-jennifer-simard-christopher-fitzgerald-will-join-katrina-lenk-and-patti-lupone-in-broadways-company-revival)
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/PHOTO-Get-A-First-Look-At-The-Broadway-Cast-Of-COMPANY-20200108
B'way's new Harry (Christopher Sieber) and Sarah (Jennifer Simard) on marital jujitsu, literal and figurative, in this week's New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/03/old-married-not-to-each-other-costars-try-jujitsu
Company's producers have opened a web store where you can buy show merch (https://companymusicalgoods.com) while waiting for the show to return sometime in the indefinite future.
And I somehow missed this ad last October, or at least failed to post it here. It includes publicity footage of Ms. Lenk as Bobbie (shot before the B'way production began rehearsal, but in what appears to be full costume, hair and makeup), intercut with clips from the West End production; snippets of that production winning Best Musical Revival and Best Supporting Actress (LuPone) at last year's Olivier awards; and soundbites from SJS, Ms. Elliott, and designer Bunny Christie (whose set also won an Olivier):
D.A. Pennebaker's 1970 doc Original Cast Album: Company has been streaming on the Criterion Channel (https://www.criterionchannel.com/original-cast-album-company) for the past month or so, but I'm excited for it to be released on Blu Ray (https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10163302047750585&id=133705265584) hopefully sooner than later.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-unstrung-power-of-elaine-stritch-in-original-cast-album-company
This is a month old, though still not quite as out-of-date as it ought to be in a year -- or a world -- that wasn't quite so jaw-droppingly awful.
But late or not, it clearly needs to be on this forum, and this thread is as good a place as any (with apologies if it's already been posted on some other thread previously):
The show is officially scheduled to resume on B'way Dec. 20, with an official opening night of January 9, 2022:
https://deadline.com/2021/05/company-broadway-return-reopening-december-katrina-lenk-patti-lupone-confirmed-1234753024/
Ed.: As of July 6, these dates have been moved up about a month: previewing November 15, opening December 9:
https://deadline.com/2021/07/company-broadway-reopening-early-return-cast-announced-1234786777/
Quote from: scenicdesign71 on Jul 11, 2020, 06:57 PMD.A. Pennebaker's 1970 doc Original Cast Album: Company has been streaming on the Criterion Channel (https://www.criterionchannel.com/original-cast-album-company) for the past month or so, but I'm excited for it to be released on Blu Ray (https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10163302047750585&id=133705265584) hopefully sooner than later.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-unstrung-power-of-elaine-stritch-in-original-cast-album-company
Finally...https://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/criterion-collection-to-release-cast-album-company_92272.html
SET LIST
"Company"
"Someone is Waiting"
"Another Hundred People"
"You Could Drive A Person Crazy"
CAST
Katrina Lenk
Matt Doyle
Christopher Fitzgerald
Christopher Sieber
Jennifer Simard
Terence Archie
Etai Benson
Bobby Conte
Nikki Renée Daniels
Claybourne Elder
Greg Hildreth
Anisha Nagarajan
Manu Narayan
Rashidra Scott
BAND
Joel Fram: music direction
Paul Staroba: piano
Michael Blanco: bass
Rich Rosenzweig: drums
Happy for the cast (and for Mr. S.)!, but glad I wasn't there the other night (I'm going in January); eight standing ovations frankly sounds like a whole additional show of its own -- which might be wildly gratifying and make for a memorable evening, but I'd still rather be watching the show onstage.
Surprise -- the NYT's Jesse Green is decidedly not a fan of the new production:
In A Gender-Flipped Revival, 'Company' Loves Misery (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/theater/company-review-sondheim.html)
In the New Yorker, contrariwise, Alexandra Schwartz joins many others (https://www.show-score.com/broadway-shows/company-broadway) in singing its praises: Two Musicals on the Perils of Aging (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/20/two-musicals-on-the-perils-of-aging)
Either way, I look forward to seeing Company in about three weeks.
(Also Kimberly Akimbo (https://atlantictheater.org/production/kimberly-akimbo/) -- which everyone is raving about, Green included (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/theater/kimberly-akimbo-review.html), and which I'm seeing next week).
I still haven't yet seen Company (next Wednesday in theory, Omicron permitting), so I can't yet say whether or not I agree with yesterday's NYT essay (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/theater/broadway-design-company-diana-musical.html) in which Jesse Green reiterates his complaint that Bunny Christie's set tells Bobbie's story better than Elliott or Lenk do. But his analysis of the role of design on Broadway is, if not wildly original, at least astutely expressed (though also, alas, rather oversimplified; I wish the piece was longer, as it's a much more complicated subject than he has the column space to address more than glancingly).
I also haven't seen Six, but I have to wonder whether his use of it here -- as an example of a design whose contributions to the storytelling are more "proportional" -- isn't a bit of calculated provocation. When your ambitions, and indeed your story, are as exceedingly slender and uncomplicated as Marlow and Moss's seem to be, the sweet spot between "hyperdesign" and its anemic opposite becomes a much easier, lower-stakes, and correspondingly less impressive, target to hit.
Speaking of that opposite (according to Green, at least), I did see Kimberly Akimbo last week, and I'm not sure I agree with his criticism of David Zinn's "simple" (it actually looked pretty pricey to me) but clever set. It may be that some other director, perhaps Fun Home's Sam Gold, could have done more with this material; but I came away with the impression that David Lindsay-Abaire's book, spread thin among proliferating subplots, is actually more undernourished than you might guess from admiring reviews like Green's (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/theater/kimberly-akimbo-review.html). There's family-friendly quirkiness and uplift aplenty -- the whole thing read to me like a middling Netflix comedy -- but I don't really think Zinn can be faulted for failing to supply an illusion of depth that's missing from the script. (That said, I am curious to read Lindsay-Abaire's original play; and if a cast album of Tesori (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/theater/jeanine-tesori-kimberly-akimbo-caroline-or-change.html)'s score is released -- and/or if the show transfers to Broadway, as seems likely -- I'll be more than happy to give it another chance).
I just saw Company with my mom tonight (both of us triple-vaxed and N-95'd), and I'm delighted to disagree (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/theater/live-theater-critics-debate.html) with almost all of Mr. Green's complaints. About the set specifically, I have to say that, after the stripped-down miniaturizations that have comprised almost every major NYC Sondheim revival for the past decade and a half, it's pretty thrilling to see a Company -- of all things! -- that tickles the eye and the brain in equal measure: this is an expansive, elegant, dazzlingly inventive staging (if this qualifies as hyperdesign, then I'm all for it), with a 14-piece orchestra and a delightful cast. I wouldn't disagree with Time Out's Adam Feldman, who confesses that Company has never been his personal favorite among SJS's works, but was won over by this production (https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/company-broadway-revival-review-stephen-sondheim-katrina-lenk-patti-lupone) to the point of pronouncing it "the most satisfying Broadway revival of a Sondheim show in history" (emphasis mine).
Also, the house seemed pretty packed -- especially for a Wednesday night, and almost shockingly for a Wed. night in the middle of the Omicron super-surge that has closed many shows at least temporarily (and some permanently). Hopefully Company will be able to dodge the bug and run for awhile; it certainly deserves to, and I'd very much like to see it again. Elliott and Christie's stagecraft is so smart -- and so bountiful -- that a single viewing, even from center-orchestra seats, wasn't sufficient for me to work out the details of just how it was all accomplished. (Literal stage magic: no fewer than two illusionists are credited in the program).
The new documentary Keeping Company With Sondheim, coming to PBS in May, "explores [the show's] legacy" and "offers an inside look at Tony-winning director Marianne Elliott's creative process of bringing the reimagined, gender-swapped production to Broadway during the COVID-19 pandemic":
https://playbill.com/article/keeping-company-with-sondheim-exploring-stephen-sondheim-and-george-furths-company-will-debut-on-pbs-in-may
A friend who saw Company yesterday texted me excitedly during intermission, and as we were chatting it occurred to me that, for all its scale and spectacle, one of the things that excites me most about Christie's design is its efficiency.
I remembered pausing on the way out of the theatre, when I was there two weeks ago, to look at the set under worklight (on two-show days especially, it's not uncommon for crews to start resetting things while the audience is still vacating the auditorium). During the performance I had marveled more than once at the sheer size and quantity of scenery, wondering where they were fitting everything backstage. But under worklight it struck me that, while there is indeed a whole lot of stuff (http://www.instagram.com/p/CYT2GjMJhOs), Christie's stage-filling compositions actually break down into a sleek and versatile collection of modular units (only two of them really large -- and even those, less so than they appear from out front and under light) being imaginatively reconfigured and re-dressed throughout the evening.
It reminded me of John Napier's original Les Misérables design, in the broad sense that its satisfactions were derived not so much from pure spectacle as from the extreme (and extremely clever) compression of an entire microcosmic world into a machine that was, at root, as elegantly simple as it was fantastically effective. Unlike Les Mis -- whose basic components were on display from the moment the curtain rose, occasionally doing unexpected tricks but with almost nothing added to or subtracted from the unit set over the course of the evening -- Christie's Company design has a magic-box element of constant surprise and revelation. It takes a while, but only adds to the delight, to realize that her box of tricks actually consists of a limited number of pieces being re-used with shrewd variations. Neil Austin's lighting design, balancing neon clarity and inky blackness, is crucial to the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't strategy by which the show moves. And the gorgeously controlled color palette -- hot-red Bobbie moving through a world of silver-grey cubicles -- is deployed with such dazzling intelligence, culminating in the brilliant "Tick Tock," that it becomes hard to imagine Company any other way.
I've never designed the show before (only assisted a friend -- in fact, Dan, the one who texted me yesterday -- on a regional production some 15 years ago). But if I had, I'd be green with envy. And if I ever do, I'll be sorely challenged to get this one out of my head: it's as unforgettable, in its way, as Boris Aronson's epochal original design (https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/heres-original-1970s-company-set-called-breathtaking-nyt), which is the highest praise imaginable in this context. Between the two -- Aronson's forbiddingly deconstructed glass and steel high-rise, and Christie's trippy urban travelogue -- I'm damned if I can think of a world for Company that they haven't, between them, already brilliantly realized.
Stephen Sondheim loved how gay Broadway's 'Company' revival is, says star Matt Doyle (https://www.today.com/popculture/music/stephen-sondheim-loved-gay-broadways-company-revival-rcna13935)
"Getting Married Today" really is one of this production's triumphs: the sterling performance, the crackerjack staging, and even the script's lone all-new line addition ("Just because we can doesn't mean we should") which, among its other virtues, sounds not unlike something Amy might have said.
In her case, it would have been a kind of crazed non-sequitur -- and one of the pleasures of Matt Doyle's performance is that, capping a series of laugh lines, it indeed sounds almost facetious at first: it takes a fraction of a second to register that the line actually lays bare a world of uncertainty that is both universal and specific. Audiences new to Company respond to the line's vaguely heretical ambivalence about same-sex marriage while, for those of us who know both versions, the similarities between Amy and Jamie, as well as their differences, snap pleasingly into focus.
Likewise Bobbie's proposal to Jamie near the end of the scene, though I'm on the fence as to whether Doyle's comic line reading of "Why don't we [get married], Bobbie??", echoing her question back to her in a pinched falsetto squeak of disbelief, might elicit ever-so-slightly too big a laugh. Several critics have complained about the unlikeliness -- or even the supposed offensiveness -- of a straight female Bobbie brooking such a suggestion to a gay male Jamie in 2021. But, even more than several other scenes where the gender-swap effectively stretches conventional norms (Jenny and David switching roles while retaining their names and genders; Joanne's "indecent proposal" at the nightclub), I think Bobbie's surprising suggestion has the welcome effect of making both her and the situation more complex and interesting. That she would come out and say such a thing, at such a moment, might be hard to swallow (though who's to say she actually does say it, IRL, when the production is at such pains to keep us cognizant of the entire evening as a dreamlike fantasy running through Bobbie's mind as she cowers in her apartment awaiting the "surprise" birthday party?); that marrying a gay male friend might occur to her as a fantasy-solution to her relationship woes -- a rueful joke until, for a fleeting, desperate second, it's not -- strikes me as not only plausible but fairly widely-relatable, perhaps more so than the original male Bobby's equally startling and tone-deaf pivot at this moment. Regardless of the characters' sexual identities, the point is that our cagey hero/ine is proposing a marriage of pure convenience, out of some clumsy admixture of fear and cynicism; which means that, at the halfway-point of the story, s/he has a lot left to work out. In one sense, the more shockingly misguided that proposal is, the clearer that arc becomes. And it makes "Marry Me A Little," a.k.a. Why I Made That Seemingly Deranged Suggestion Just Now, all the more pointed -- and poignant -- in its stubborn rejection of the messy, imperfect realities of all human pair-bonded relationships (marital or otherwise (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/03/why-we-lose-friends-aging-happiness/621305/)).
(Then, too, who's to say Bobbie's proposal -- while undeniably ill-timed -- is actually so crazy? Sexual/romantic compatibility as both the necessary condition of marriage and its raison d'être is a historically recent idea, and still not a universally accepted one, while qualms about same-sex marriage from the left are often qualms about marriage more generally: as a legal institution conferring certain privileges on those who choose to avail themselves of it, and thereby discriminating against those who don't, many would argue that it should be abolished, not expanded. In the meantime, as long as this "prehistoric ritual" remains in effect, people will marry for a whole host of reasons, none necessarily any inherently "better" than others).
To pick another example that has elicited strong criticism: Joanne's even more startling nightclub proposition, not to "make it" with Bobbie herself, but to gin up some kind of affair or one-off fling with (the apparently unwitting) Larry. On the night I was there, LuPone's eyes welled-up perceptibly while coolly appraising Bobbie as "the kind of girl most men want and never seem to get". This acting choice alone suggests so many fascinating questions about her bizarre offer, about her marriage to Larry, and simply about Joanne herself, that even if those questions aren't answered conclusively, they remain vastly more intriguing to me than the original vanishingly-thin sketch of a jaded "cougar" chasing an attractive younger man out of sheer boredom (or, even less interestingly, out of some need -- much more plausibly Furth's than Joanne's -- to engineer the epiphany that will lead him to "Being Alive". As a direct segue, that engineering remains about as bumpy and uncertain here as ever, but I guess you can't win them all).
Company may be the original "concept musical," but in the past its concept has sometimes faltered for me when it gestures, sporadically but unquestioningly, toward this or that culturally-presumed chasm between Men and Women. Specificity is everything, and even if I don't buy every single moment in Elliott's interpretation, overall the cross-casting has the highly salutary effect of allowing me to see these characters as complicated and unpredictable individuals. None of the switches mentioned above strikes me as flat-out implausible; all provide windows into characters and relationships that had, as originally cast, sometimes seemed either frustratingly opaque or wearyingly two-dimensional. More often than not, it's precisely when a line sounds ineffably "off" coming from the "wrong" gender that the characters in this production spring most vividly to life. (April, for all her charm, was a fairly standard-issue quirky sexpot, 1970 edition -- a "Laugh-In"-era Goldie Hawn on downers, more or less -- whereas tender-hearted himbo Andy, burbling about the injured butterfly, earns Bobbie's description of him as "cute, original... odd," and then some: Claybourne Elder is, to put it mildly, a hoot).
Another instance: flipping David and Jenny -- and with them, the threadbare, long-disproven, but intransigent cliché that marriage is for women -- is a tiny but long-overdue service to humanity. She's now the one musing uneasily that "I got my husband, my kids, a home. I have everything, but freedom... which is everything," while he's hurt by her admission that "frankly, sometimes I'd like to be single again" and has to be coaxed into conceding that, as a fantasy, "even an hour" of singledom might be appealing. "Could you make it two hours?", he giggles, as coyly but also as weirdly obligingly as any Jenny of yore: a sweetly besotted but also rather childlike househusband whose awareness of being hopelessly uncool only heightens his conviction that he'd be lost without his confident and assertive wife; indeed, this asymmetry may be a pillar of their marriage, though Jenny seems not-altogether-settled as to whether the rewards of being the alpha in this relationship are worth the chafe of David's dependence. It's a dynamic we don't often see onstage or onscreen, and it's a lot more interesting than the traditional account whereby Jenny's a strait-laced doormat, David's a hipster jerk, and the gradual revelation of their partnership's relatively mild, but sharply off-putting, toxicity is notable mainly for how irrecoverably it sours the stoner comedy. Flipping their roles doesn't redeem them, or make their marriage look particularly more appealing, nor should it; but it at least encourages us to consider them as idiosyncratic individuals rather than easily-sorted (and decidedly dated) "types".
More than once, Katrina Lenk's Bobbie exits a scene after having visited one or another of the couples and instantly exhales an expansive "WOW." of bottled-up dismay (and perhaps relief at having escaped), where the male Bobbys I've seen have tended to evince only mildly bemused incomprehension. Hers is still brief and offhanded -- but also laugh-out-loud funny in its irrepressible bluntness. Lenk finds a tone, midway between flatly-judgmental and stunned-speechless, that turns what had previously always registered as a weak throwaway moment (if it registered at all) into a crucial tension-relief valve both for Bobbie and for the audience. Ironically, while her all-caps WOW still strikes me as the far more appropriate response to these scenes (even in their original configurations) -- it's genuinely funny because it arises from genuine alarm -- Elliott's pointedly surreal production nevertheless tips the scales enough to persuade me that she's reacting to real people and their weird behavior, rather than to a series of snappily-acerbic sitcom sketches.
Company in the New York Public Library archive:
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2022/02/08/company-in-archive
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2020/11/03/george-furth-stephen-sondheim-company-photographs
This is neither the freshest nor the cheeriest news (though it could be worse on both counts), but in case anyone hadn't heard:
Patti LuPone tested positive for Covid-19 (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/02/patti-lupone-misses-company-performances-tests-positive-coronavirus-broadway) the weekend before last and has been home since then, but hopes to return to Company on March 8.
The formidable Jennifer Simard -- heretofore the best and funniest Sarah among the half-dozen I've seen -- is stepping in (https://twitter.com/SimardJennifer/status/1498435386762272773) as Joanne until then, which might be well worth a look, if only I weren't feeling so cash-strapped at this particular moment.
Best of luck to her, and here's wishing Ms. LuPone a full and speedy recovery.
Ms. Simard, audio only:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8jDccJwEL4
Ms. LuPone (who indeed returned last night (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWeLuLmGF5Y)), full video:
https://twitter.com/CompanyBway/status/1501196310153736195
I don't recall having read Variety's review until just now, but as unequivocal raves go, theirs is among the most astute and well-written this production has received:
https://variety.com/2021/legit/reviews/company-review-broadway-patti-lupone-1235129438/
Recently nominated for what will hopefully be her second Tony, Bunny Christie has posted four model photos on Instagram (the 2 posts linked below each include 2 pics) of some of her early Company experiments:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdiBcexomfH/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdiBnPwIX0v/
Great Performances S49 Ep29 "Keeping Company With Sondheim" premiered on May 27 and is a must-watch (for anyone who hasn't already), either online or on the PBS app:
https://www.pbs.org/video/great-performances-keeping-company-with-sondheim-7rdhzl/
As promised, it includes lots of rehearsal and performance clips from the current B'way revival. (Words can't express my envy of their full-scale rehearsal-room mockups of essentially Bunny Christie's entire set). These are mostly brief snippets -- no full songs, or anywhere near -- but they're nicely shot and plentiful enough to offer an excellent sense of how the production works. They do give away a few visual surprises ("Another Hundred People," "Getting Married Today," "Tick Tock"), but the moments in question are so brilliant that I'd rather they be "spoiled" than not captured at all.
There are also nine minutes of extra footage (https://www.pbs.org/video/behind-scenes-broadways-company-patti-lupone-z61iwf/) not included in the doc itself, focusing on LuPone's Joanne, her "Ladies Who Lunch", and how it resonates anew when addressed, pointedly, to a female Bobbie. While Joanne may be the most-married person ("three or four times") in the show, and Bobbie the least-married (never yet); and while their defense mechanisms may seem radically different (one stays aloof by breathing fire, the other hides behind people-pleasing); there's nevertheless a kinship between the two women -- and a cautionary edge to the song overall:
here, but for the grace of God, go you -- which isn't as explicit with a male Bobby. Usually (as LuPone observes) a kind of stand-alone eleven-o'clock number, "The Ladies Who Lunch" has never spoken to Robert's journey with such blunt clarity: notwithstanding the crucial nod to the gender-unspecified "ones who just watch", he was never in danger of
becoming any of the women Joanne spends the rest of the song skewering. By contrast, Bobbie might well lose sleep after hearing this song, wondering whether it has laid out the entire narrow range of
best-case options available to her, even in 2022.
Streaming until June 24, according to the PBS website.
Deadline has published a selection of SJS & Marianne Elliott's emails to one another, from 2016-2018, over the course of preparing the new Company for London:
https://deadline.com/2022/06/stephen-sondheim-marianne-elliott-new-emails-company-evolution-1235037493/
Tony-Winning 'Company' Revival Will End Broadway Run July 31 (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/theater/company-broadway-closing.html)
Well damn, that sucks.
Not that we thought things were back to pre-pandemic normalcy, but still. This, to my mind, is a sobering measure of just how woefully incomplete Broadway's Return really is (so far). If the time when Fun Home and The Band's Visit could run over a year apiece is gone for the foreseeable future (is there such a thing as a foreseeable future anymore? has there ever really been?), it will be a bitter pill indeed.
Hopefully my finances will improve in time to catch this at least once more before closing. (My day job is supposed to resume any day now, after being on hiatus since mid-March, but I've heard no definite word since their "late June" estimate, three months ago).
In better news, a North American tour is planned to start in fall 2023.
I am so sad about this. Chris and I are planning a trip to New York in December and this was on the list. Oh well. At least we will see the tour. I am really curious about the casting. I wonder if any of the Broadway cast will be in it. I presume we won't have Katrina Lenk or Patti Lupone.
This just popped up in my email:
Company North American Tour Announces Initial Stops (https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/news/company-north-american-tour-dates_94804.html)
Namely: Detroit (October 2023), Denver (May-June 2024), Seattle (July 2024). Twenty-odd additional stops TBD, no casting announced yet.
I knew it was coming here. I am trying to work up my enthusiasm. So far I've been thinking that it's going to be in a very large theatre, and on top of that, ticket prices will be inflated. From what I've seen of it, the most recent Broadway revival looked like an intimate (even crowded at times) show, and I wonder how well that would translate to the large venue. It might all depend on who's in the cast, and I've got over a year to figure out if I really can't miss the opportunity.
The Buell (https://www.denvercenter.org/plan-your-visit/theatres-seating/the-buell-theatre/) does have a seating capacity [2,839] well over twice that of the Jacobs (https://shubert.nyc/theatres/bernard-b-jacobs/) [1,078], where Company ran here. (The latter is a midsize house by Broadway standards, roughly halfway between B'way's smallest [Hayes; 597] and largest [Gershwin; 1,933] houses by capacity).
The Buell's stage is bigger, too, but hopefully not enough to leave this Company looking lost on it. (Its proscenium (https://aviewfrommyseat.com/photo/84426/Temple+Buell+Theatre/section-Balcony+D/row-B/seat-305/) -- which is the important thing here -- is 67' wide, compared to the Jacobs's (https://aviewfrommyseat.com/photo/154960/Bernard+B.+Jacobs+Theatre/section-Mezzanine+L/row-E/seat-11/) 40'; but even tours as large as Wicked (https://www.denvercenter.org/news-center/video-photos-wicked-arrives-in-denver-for-record-sixth-time/) tend to leave a good 20-30% of that 67' width unused, or at most, expand what on B'way might be a slimmer decorative false proscenium, just to fill space). The Gielgud, where Company ran in London in 2018-19, seats 985 -- not too much smaller than the Jacobs -- but, like many West End theaters, its prosc is significantly narrower than most B'way houses: only 30' wide, with a taller, squarer aspect ratio). Judging by Bunny Christie's website (http://www.bunnychristie.co.uk/company), the set may have been a bit more cramped in London, but it was expanded by about 33% for Broadway, where it filled the Jacobs stage very effectively indeed. So I'm guessing it won't look any more dwarfed by the Buell than most other sizable (https://aviewfrommyseat.com/large-photo/171764/Temple+Buell+Theatre/section-D/row-UU/seat-4/) B'way (https://aviewfrommyseat.com/large-photo/85479/Temple+Buell+Theatre/section-Orchestra-A-Mid/row-N/seat-8/) touring (https://aviewfrommyseat.com/large-photo/159041/Temple+Buell+Theatre/section-Orch/row-Ss/seat-13/) productions.
I saw Company from tenth-row orchestra seats at the Jacobs, and again from first-row mezzanine ones, and while it had its intimate moments which undoubtedly benefited from sitting relatively close, I wouldn't say the staging overall depended on intimacy or claustrophobia such as could only be provided by a modest-size stage and/or auditorium. Indeed, the production's bold, broad visual composition and movement were among its chief delights: it plays with scale so that some scenes sprawl and others are literally miniature, with Ms. Christie's Tony- and Olivier-winning set morphing to create its own crowdedness, or spaciousness, as needed -- but on the whole, I'd say this staging is less likely to get lost in a large venue than any other Company I've seen. (Possibly even including the iconic Prince/Aronson original, which I didn't see (not having been born yet), but which was designed for the midsized Alvin -- 1,363 seats, 40'W prosc. -- and whose architecturally imposing unit set (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Boris-Aronsons-set-for-Company_fig1_356656674), with its two glass elevators, nevertheless lacked the Elliott/Christie revival's dynamic large-scale scenic movement).
Granted, this is still Company, not Moulin Rouge! or even Hamilton; a certain intimacy is built into the writing, especially Furth's book scenes. Then again, neither is it Fun Home -- a show which would seem to require an intimate house as surely as it requires excellent singing actors -- and FH's touring version was nevertheless somehow still captivating from row M of a venue (https://bushnell.org/TheBushnell/media/Bushnell-Media/Development/Mortensen_Seating_Chart.pdf) just about the same size (at 2,799 seats) as the Buell, and architecturally charmless to boot.
Overall, I would recommend seeing this without reservation; I still agree with Adam Feldman's description of this production as "the most satisfying Broadway revival of a Sondheim show in history (https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/company-broadway-revival-review-stephen-sondheim-katrina-lenk-patti-lupone)," hence worth seeing under almost any circumstances even if, like Feldman and myself, you don't count Company as your very-favoritest of Sondheim's shows. But just in case I'm wrong, and the Buell does turn out to be a slightly bigger-than-ideal home for it, I'd also recommend splurging a bit, if possible, for the best seats (i.e. center-ish, close-ish) you can reasonably afford.
ALL THE SPOILERS (linked below; I'm superstitiously not embedding the actual YouTube player here), for anyone planning on seeing the tour or undecided about whether to do so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AT28qxOvHE
Between the camera positioning (shot with a relatively steady hand and a decent eye, as these things go, from what appears to have been quite a good seat) and the video quality (phone-camera technology really has gotten astonishingly good), this is overall a really nice capture.
Quote from: scenicdesign71 on Apr 15, 2023, 12:32 AMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AT28qxOvHE
As one who had tickets to see it in April of 2020 :'( and then didn't get back to NY until after it closed, I was happy to watch this. It was truly an amazing feat shooting the whole thing and even zooming in and out appropriately without drawing attention. Not sure how they managed it. Someone in the comments said "to whoever filmed this: thank you for risking public humiliation from patti lupone"
I do plan to see the tour but it won't be with the same cast so I don't consider this a spoiler. I've certainly seen enough and read enough about this production that nothing came as a surprise.