COMPANY

[scenicdesign71]

Following some random internet wormhole all the way to Brendan Gill's rave review (in the May 2, 1970 issue of The New Yorker) of the original B'way production of Company, this passage gave me a start:

Company is the kind of musical that a number of increasingly distracted champions of Broadway have been begging for -- not a conventional adaptation, however skillful and energetic, of a previous success in some other incarnation, but an original piece of work, and one, moreover, that joyously breaks new ground.  Not all that much new ground, mind you -- just enough to let one reflect that My Fair Lady happened fourteen years ago and Oklahoma! twenty-seven years ago, and that, since everything else in the world moves, the musical theatre ought to be capable of moving, too.

It's worth noting that Gill's assessment of contemporary Broadway, in the first sentence quoted above, might have been written yesterday.  But what shocked me were the figures in his next sentence.  Only fourteen seasons separated My Fair Lady's B'way opening from Company's!  Though he's suggesting that that's a substantial length of time for the American musical to have awaited its next notable innovation, from a 21st-century perspective it seems astonishingly brief.

Consider that 14 years ago (now), the 2007 B'way season gave us Curtains, Legally Blonde, Xanadu, Young Frankenstein, and on the artier end of the spectrum, Harold Prince's short-lived Weill/Lenya bio-musical Lovemusik.  Also revivals of 110 in the Shade (starring a Tony-nominated Audra McDonald) and Grease.  Grey Gardens closed in July after not quite nine months on Broadway, and Next To Normal opened Off Broadway at the beginning of 2008 (arriving on B'way a year later).

And 27 years ago, 1994 offered the wan spectacle of Passion competing against Beauty and the Beast for the Best-Musical Tony; other highlights included Sunset Boulevard with its attendant casting brouhaha, Lincoln Center's import of the NT Carousel,  Prince's Show Boat revival, and precious little else (unless you count Grease's very first B'way revival -- done up by the Weisslers, in hot pink, as one of their signature exercises in interchangeable stunt casting -- or  The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public as highlights).

It's not that there have been no major innovators since then: Jonathan Larson, Duncan Sheik, Jeanine Tesori, Lin-Manuel Miranda -- we can always argue about who makes the short list.  But even the most accomplished of these artists has had no more than two or three Broadway productions that really moved the needle artistically over the past three decades, compared to Sondheim's ten during the 27-year period from 1970 to 1997.  Which isn't to denigrate them -- I'd argue that Tesori and Miranda, at least, are working on an artistic level comparable to Sondheim's -- but I guess just to point out that, as SJS and Prince (among others) have said innumerable times, the economics of B'way just aren't what they were.

Mostly I was just stunned to realize that, while some of the 1994 and 2007 productions cited above were fairly forgettable, none would necessarily feel all that dated on today's Broadway stage; nothing like the difference Gill cites between Company and its oh-so-distant-seeming (but actually startlingly close in time) forebears.  Granted, Company's plotless storyline was set in a self-consciously up-to-the-minute present-day 1970, whereas My Fair Lady and Oklahoma! were both written as period pieces (though, for another shock, consider that MFL's Edwardian England and OK!'s turn-of-the-century statehood were both only about 40 years past when each opened on Broadway; for comparison, Merrily We Roll Along and Dreamgirls both turn 40 this year).  But the differences that make R&H's and L&L's shows feel like artifacts from an entirely different century than Company have only tangentially to do with their settings.

[scenicdesign71]

Antonio Banderas is currently starring, under his own direction, as an older Bobby remembering/reliving his 35th birthday in Company at his Teatro del Soho in Málaga, in a Spanish translation by Ignacio García May (book) and Roser Batalla (lyrics).

The Sondheim Society's Craig Glenday gives it a rave:

https://www.sondheimsociety.com/single-post/antonio-banderas-company-review

I had seen this preview clip last fall (a "calling card" for the full production, as the video's description has it), but had no idea what to make of it at the time.  In it, Banderas acquits himself gracefully enough -- and Lord knows he remains unreasonably dashing at 61 -- but, given the casual staging and no indication of what was to be made of Bobby's stated (and often-restated, and not exactly incidental to the story) age, I pretty much wrote it off as a harmless low-profile vanity project and gave Banderas credit, at least, for having the good taste to be a Sondhead.

Lo and behold, the full production has in fact materialized, in lavish high style (see teaser, below) and in its original '70s period; and, from Glenday's review, it appears the age gap has been styled as a feature rather than a bug.

I'm not gonna lie: perhaps especially now that I'm a bit closer to Banderas's own age than to (the original) Bobby's, I'd be curious to see more of this production.

[scenicdesign71]

Early last year, Porchlight's Michael Weber hosted a Zoom conversation about Company with Raùl Esparza, Robert Falls and Lonny Price:

[scenicdesign71]

The NYT on Antonio Banderas's Company, mentioned above (it opened in fall 2021 in the actor's hometown of Málaga) and currently running through February 2023 in Madrid:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/theater/antonio-banderas-company-sondheim-spain-madrid.html

Previous (vague) descriptions left the impression that, in this production, Banderas's Bobby was looking back on his 35th birthday from his present (undeniably middle, nearing what used to be considered retirement) age.  This article finally brings some clarity, stating that he got permission from Sondheim to change the character's milestone birthday from 35 to 50.

He's having, in other words, a proper midlife crisis.  But -- unlike Ben in Follies, say -- this is a bachelor midlife crisis, which in the upper middle class of 1970 Manhattan (this production does appear to be set in its original period), would seem a relatively unusual story.  In this context, and especially in combination with his extreme eligibility, Bobby's middle-aged never-marriedness would stand out to an almost alarming extent.  (By American standards of the time, at 50 he'd almost have to be written off as either gay, or a compulsive womanizer, or in some other sense pathological).

His age might also change many of the show's dynamics in more or less subtle ways.  I'm guessing he's much closer to Joanne in age, perhaps more so than to any of the other couples; in photos, at least, Banderas, while as handsome as ever (and easily passing for a year younger than me despite actually being a decade older), does appear perceptibly older than many or most of his friends.  (Born in 1920, a decade before SJS, this Bobby would have come of age during the Spanish Civil War, while the youngest among his friends/girlfriends could, as in other 1970-set productions, still theoretically be post-WWII baby-boomers).

Which seems like it might shift everything in interesting ways, from  the husbands' envy of him to the wives' (and girlfriends', and even Peter's) attraction to him, to Amy's rejection of his weird-at-any-age marriage proposal, to the specific valence of Joanne's indecent one.  If the milieu here is specifically upper-middle-class Spanish-speaking 1970 Manhattan, things become even more interesting; I have no idea, but would be fascinated to learn, how specific cultural norms around age, gender, and class (among other factors; race? country of origin? are all of these characters of Iberian-Spanish, as opposed to, e.g., Central or Latin American, backgrounds?) might bring new shadings to these characters and their relationships.  Or does the cast just remain a more or less diverse collection of privileged but otherwise "typical" (whatever that means), ethnically-nonspecific 20th-century New Yorkers, speaking and singing in Spanish simply because the show is being produced in Spain, by and for Spanish-speaking artists and audiences?

I wonder if there's any hope of this production being filmed for streaming?

[KathyB]

Please forgive the formatting of this response. I was having difficulties with typing, timing and posting.

Last night I listened to the Spanish cast recording. I thought Banderas made an excellent Bobby, and "Sentirse Vivo" ("Being Alive") was one of the highlights for me, along with "Arrepentido-Agradecido" ("Sorry-Grateful").
 
 
Quote from: scenicdesign71on 12/15/2022, 1:27:30 AM

If the milieu here is specifically upper-middle-class Spanish-speaking 1970 Manhattan, things become even more interesting; I have no idea, but would be fascinated to learn, how specific cultural norms around age, gender, and class (among other factors; race? country of origin? are all of these characters of Iberian-Spanish, as opposed to, e.g., Central or Latin American, backgrounds?) might bring new shadings to these characters and their relationships.  Or does the cast just remain a more or less diverse collection of privileged but otherwise "typical" (whatever that means), ethnically-nonspecific 20th-century New Yorkers, speaking and singing in Spanish simply because the show is being produced in Spain, by and for Spanish-speaking artists and audiences?

I was thinking of this as I listened, and I think that the characters are just "regular" New Yorkers who just happen to be speaking and singing in Spanish, much like we never question why the characters in Forum are speaking and singing in English (or whatever language the specific production may be in) rather than Latin.
 
 I really wish I knew more Spanish, so I might be able to tell how faithful the translated lyrics are to the originals. My Spanish consists of being able to count to ten, and knowing just a few assorted words here and there, including "el perro."

[scenicdesign71]

Thanks for posting this, Kathy -- I hadn't realized a cast album had been released!

I really wish I knew more Spanish, so I might be able to tell how faithful the translated lyrics are to the originals. My Spanish consists of being able to count to ten, and knowing just a few assorted words here and there, including "el perro."

After living in Washington Heights for seventeen years, I should know a lot more Spanish too.  Maybe this album will motivate me -- a New Year's resolution?  I'm listening to it on Apple Music, which often includes written lyrics scrolling by in real time -- but not, alas, in this case.  It would be super helpful to be able to read the Spanish lyrics while hearing them.

I'm loving Marta Ribera's "Las Damas Que Almuerzan" ("The Ladies Who Lunch")!  I'm not sure exactly how much is the language itself (tart consonants and fiercely rolled R's work wonders here) and how much is her marvelous delivery -- both surely contribute to the overall effect -- but in pure sonic terms, there's an elegance, tonal variety and sharpness of attack that blaze right through the language barrier.

[scenicdesign71]

I finally found the Spanish lyrics -- linked from the production's own website:

Company, el Musical - Libreto

[scenicdesign71]

Lately I've been "finding" rhymes that I'd somehow missed for years, then second-guessing whether or not I had actually missed them, or just noted them so long ago that I'd long since stopped registering them as such.  So much of what makes Sondheim great is not flashy cleverness, contra his critics, but simply gorgeous writing in which technique, however unearthly, is properly subordinated -- often to the point of invisibility -- to serve whatever dramatic or emotional effect he's trying to create.

But reading a FB friend's transcription of part of "The Little Things You Do Together" just now, I discovered a rhyme that I'm pretty sure has never before registered to me as such:

It's not talk of God and the decade ahead that
Allows you to get through the worst.
It's "I do" and "You don't" and "Nobody said that,"
And "Who brought the subject up first?"

(rewritten in 2018 as:

It's not wedded bliss and what happens in bed that
Allows you to get through the worst.
It's "I do" and "You don't" and "Nobody said that,"
And "Who brought the subject up first?")

Someone on Genius.com also points out -- which I'd also never noticed -- that the thumbnail marital-spat sketched in these lines gains an even sharper comic edge by beginning with the nuptial-sounding "I do" (and its instant contradiction, followed by tactical scrambling).

[scenicdesign71]

Keeping house, but clutching a copy of Life,
Just to keep in touch...

The Atlantic:  What Life Magazine Taught Me About Life

Twenty-two years younger than Elaine Stritch and two years older than Patti Lupone, the author of this piece remembers poring over Life every week as a girl growing up in rural Virginia in the 1950s.  Posting this here on the Company thread might seem like rather a stretch; but, in addition to being a good read on its own terms, the article's first half especially makes an interesting sort of companion piece (or a lengthy annotation) to "The Ladies Who Lunch".