Company

Musical (1970)
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by George Furth

With John Ambrosino (Robert), Kerri Wilson (Sara), Davron S. Monroe (Harry), Elise Arsenault (Susan), Matthew Zahnzinger (Peter), Teresa Winner Blume (Jenny), Todd Yard (David), Erica Spyres (Amy), Tyler Simahk (Paul), Leigh Barrett (Joanne), Will McGarrahan (Larry), Carla Martinez (Marta), Maria LaRossa (Kathy), Adrianne Hick (April)

This show is so not about anything in particular that it created something of a sensation in the world of Broadway musicals when it appeared in 1970.

Of course, Stephen Sondheim has been known for doing weird and interesting things in exquisite ways, and this was perhaps his first major foray into that general arena. In some sense, it’s an abstract work, much like Sunday In The Park With George, now playing at the Huntington Theater or Assassins, which played at the New Repertory Theater not long ago, or Pacific Overtures, which the Boston University College of Fine Arts produced a few years back. But it’s a highly entertaining and personal abstraction and because of that immediacy and charm, its general lack of narrative doesn’t draw away from it.

Basically, the main character, Robert (John Ambrosino), or Bobby, is solo, without relationship, and endlessly hounded by his gaggle of friends to think about joining up with someone.

Meanwhile, Bobby gets to see all the relationships of his friends in perspective and the sight is not always too pleasing. There are breakups, not very willing marriages, portended affairs, and a general sense that the whole deal is pretty unfulfilling.

Bobby also has a fling with a stewardess (Adrianne Hick), but it doesn’t really seem like fulfilled love, and, perhaps in an embellishment of the original, a short narrative excursion into the possibility of homosexual involvement with Peter (Matthew Zahnzinger) one of the ex-married men.

Alluded to, and somewhat joked about, the homosexual affair never gets realized, but at least it gets touched upon. Back in 1970 when such things were not as out in the open, the homosexual Sondheim did not wander into that realm in his musical. In the mid-1990’s, however, Sondheim and George Furth who wrote the book of Company, revised it to include this scene which at least acknowledges Bobby’s possible homosexuality. Given the revelation of Sondheim’s and Furth’s homosexuality (Sondheim’s so nicely accounted for in the Lyric Stage’s wonderful production of Sondheim on Sondheim last season) this narrative embellishment of Company makes total sense.

Though the story doesn’t really go anywhere, and the show is actually quite long – over two and a half hours – it doesn’t flag. There are lots of wonderful and memorable numbers in the show and some really great prerformances in this production. Choreography (by Rachel Bertone) in many of the numbers is really exquisitely done – sometimes subtly, sometimes more dramatically, and the effect is invigorating.

The trio of women who perform You Could Drive a Person Crazy in Act I do a terrific job, lighting up the stage with their ensemble shenanigans.

Erica Spyres (Amy), later in Act I, does a spectacular rendition of Getting Married Today, one of Sondheim’s great patter songs, a palate twister that makes I Am The Model Of a Modern Major General from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance seem like a casual ballad. Spyres is one of the wonderful young talents of the Boston musical stage and she delivers the torrent of words that make this song so fabulous – with clarity, precision and enormous drive. Lyrically supplementing the tune with an operatic aura is Teresa Winner Blume’s (Jenny) attenuated and beautiful line. Tyler Simahk (Paul) provides perky and appropriate dramatic complement to the very funny song.

Act II opens with the great number Side by Side by Side/ What Would We Do Without You? a great ensemble number with eloquently simply and highly effective choreography and staging. It’s full of pizzazz.

Bobby’s sweet and confusing encounter with the stewardess is capped by her ballad Barcelona, a goodbye song in which she tells about where she’s going on her next venture. Both Adrianne Hick as the stewardess and Ambrosino as Bobby do a great job pulling this one off.

Though the well-known and wonderful song Ladies Who Lunch does not really fit into the narrative spot in the play in which Joanne, gutsily rendered by seasoned Boston musical theater actress Leigh Barrett, and her husband Larry, played by the wonderfully dignified and versatile Will McGarrahan, sit with Bobby in a bar, Barrett gives it such a full and gutsy rendition that it echoes through the hall. This is one example of where Sondheim’s song may have just landed, rather than being carefully crafted for a spot in the show, but, again, it doesn’t really matter. The effect of the whole show is to drop in on issues of character and relationship and when one finds this song oddly placed here, it doesn’t seem all that shocking.

Ambrosino does a creditable job with the finale, Being Alive, a really lovely song. He’s a quite good singer, but has a tendency to scream when he gets to attenuated notes. That reveals itself in a few places in the show and one hopes that this quite talented musical actor who gives nice shapes to many of his lines, would find the means to develop a capacity to deepen and shape those longer high notes so that they felt more like graceful culminations of a phrase rather than blasts of a horn.

This is a touching and interestingly innovative show. There are lots of fantastic moments in this rendition of it.

– BADMan