Catch the Original Version of Everything

Company is a musical by Stephen Sondheim (score) and George Furth (Book) that opened on Broadway in April, 1970. I was too young to see it, so I just had to grow up with the amazing songs from the original Broadway cast recording running through my head and no idea what the staging looked like or how the characters related to one another. My rendition of The Ladies Who Lunch in the 7th grade talent show sure had folks in the keystone state shaking their heads over me. Who knew Elaine Stritch could reach a 12-year old?

Company is a series of vignettes strung together in the hopes that light will be shed on the state of matrimonial bliss. But it was written by people who didn't have any experience with matrimonial bliss, so it came off a bit on the anti side. And since I grew up in a world that denies me the opportunity for matrimonial bliss, I'm thrilled to raise my voice with the original Broadway cast recording on such cynical anthems as The Little Things You Do Together, You Could Drive a Person Crazy, Another Hundred People and Getting Married Today. Performances by Dean Jones, Beth Howland and Pamela Myers were unforgettable.

The show was revived by the Roundabout Theatre Company in 1995 and the press made quite a fuss over Veanne Cox in the Beth Howland role (singing the tongue-twisting, show-stopping Getting Married Today), but other than that, the news was not so good. Boyd Gaines, who played the lead role of Robert, was plagued by vocal challenges and a lingering illness and Debra Monk was plagued with having to be constantly compared to Elaine Stritch - and constantly coming out on the losing side of the comparison. The director, Scott Ellis, it was suggested, was not as successful with this show as he was with his prior revival of She Loves Me. The Roundabout being a subscription house, and this being a highly-aniticipated revival of a Tony-winning Sondheim show, tickets were hard to come by. So I didn't get to see whether the critics were right or not.

Now, Company has been revived again, this time by John Doyle, the British director who poured new blood into Sweeney Todd last year. Mr. Doyle comes from Newbury, in the UK, where he has staged everything from Kander and Ebb's Cabaret to Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers. The thing of it is, he has staged them with actors playing their parts and their musical instruments. So, for instance, Patti LuPone as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd played the tuba while she sang God, That's Good. In my opinion, this can work as an interesting new concept, but as a standard practice, not so much.

So I wasn't able to see Company in its pure, untainted form. No, I had to suffer through the indignity of April, the charmingly naive flight attendant, blowing away on a tuba before her tryst with Robert, as well as Marta, April and Kathy blowing the doo doo doo doos in You Can Drive a Person Crazy on their Alto Saxes - so instead of reminding me of The Andrews Sisters, the whole thing smacked of halftime at a high school football game. These band geeks are wonderful singers, and accomplished musicians, but really, John, when I see a show on Broadway at $100 a ticket, I like to see actors acting and musicians...in the orchestra pit!

Raul Esparza plays Robert in this production, and although he certainly hits all the right notes, he sure does it loudly. And he's got this interesting little habit of whining some lines right through his nose, just the way Barbra Streisand and Rufus Wainwright do. But when he starts reaching for those higher notes - look out New Jersey, 'cause Raul's belting is gonna shake the tar off your turnpike! I'm thinking anyone who goes to this show and rents one of those devices that helps you hear better, would be well advised to turn the sound waaaaaay down whenever Raul steps forward, or risk never hearing your child's first words or your boyfriend saying "I love you" or even the door buzzer in your apartment.

This time around, Barbara Walsh has the extremely unenviable task of taking up where Elaine Stritch left off. And Barbara gamely tries to channel Elaine, skulking around the stage all night as if she's had a hundred too many, passing judgment on everything and everyone like Clarence Thomas trying desperately to prove himself in his first year on the Supreme Court. I don't know whether Ms. Walsh was actually attempting to impersonate Elaine Stritch or if she just can't think of another way to play Joanne, but the unfortunate result was that it was a wan copy of a bold original.

So yeah, for the most part, it was great fun to watch Company being performed live on stage in front of me. But what I really wish is that I could have seen the show as it was intended, with actors focusing on playing their scenes instead of playing clarinets and trumpets. The moral of this story is that you should try to see the originals whenever you can. Or else you might end up seeing John Lloyd Young as Jason Bourne in Bourne Free! Or Hugh Panaro in The Talented Mr. Ripley Plays the Tuba. This is why I'm glad Matt makes movies, so I can always see his original performances. Well, I did miss his scintillating turn as Humpty Dumpty in Bravo Cappuccio! at the New England Drama Festival, and it does seem unlikely they'll make a film out of that. Unless Nicole Kidman becomes available to play Chicken Little and Mark Wahlberg frees up his schedule to take on the part of the Big Bad Wolf. After his recent critical drubbing, though, I don't think we could expect Sean Penn to have anything to do with all the king's men. I'm just not sure we can get a project like this green-lighted anyway, what with big studios trying to cut corners wherever they can these days. So yeah, you can see how important it is to catch the original version of everything.