1995 Company Revival

I didn't see the revival...but MY that icon!

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I saw it, I loved it. I mean, it was Company, for g*d's sake. The synthesizer arrangements weren't so great. But that CAST!

I lucked out and saw the understudy for Gaines, James Clow. I loved him. I've never been able to stand Gaines, he just makes me want to scratch non-existent hives. But it was Company, so I had to go.

Besides the aforementioned cast members, there was LaChanze, Diana Canova, Robert Westenberg, Kate Burton and Charlotte d'Amboise. I'm so glad I saw it.

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I think Veanne Cox in Getting Married Today is unbelievable. She finally get's it right: It's Amy's breakdown set to music. The tempo is finally fast enough and u get the neverending rambling effect.

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Never saw it (i was definitly to young for Company at the time as Im only 16 now) but I absolutly love the recording.

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La Chanze really didn't seem to get "Another Hundred People". She sang it nicely, but she smiled blithely, like a zombie throughout it. It's not a happy song. Really, apart from Veanne Cox's Amy, and Jane Krakowski's dry, funny April, I thought the revival was a total bust, and those reduced orchestrations sucked balls.

I have to say, the original cast concert at Lincoln Center was so much more full of character, and the snippets of Michael Bennett's choreography that they recreated blew Rob Marshall's musical staging of the revival completely out of the water. With an economy of movement, or even just some simple patterns for those couples, Bennett's work made you go out of your mind. And there's still no one who I've seen get to the wounded, wondering core of the character and "Being Alive" the way Dean Jones does.

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Updated On: 5/4/05 at 03:54 PM

This was the first production of the show I ever saw. Best in the cast, IMO, were Krakowski (nailing all the laughs as April) and Veanne Cox. Kudos also for Charlotte D'Amboise, and for the production team for keeping "Tick Tock."

Boyd Gaines had a lot of vocal problems with the role and missed as many performances as he attended. I saw his understudy, James Clow who was solid.

I didn't care for Debra Monk who lacked sophistication as Joanne or for La Chanze, who indeed smiled like a blithe zombie throughout her very oddly phrased version of ANOTHER HUNDRED PEOPLE.

Overall, I'd say the revival was good though not extraordinary. It certainly wasn't as well done as the Donmar Warehouse version, aired on BBC, and probably not as good as the production at the Kennedy Center.

P.S. Boyd Gaines wasn't going to do the transfer to the Brooks Atkinson theatre, Michael Rupert was contracted, but then the transfer fell apart.

Updated On: 5/4/05 at 04:13 PM

I heard that someone with the $$$ for that transfer refused to put up the $$$ without Boyd Gaines and that's why it fell through. Because there was no way he was going to be able to carry the show with his vocal problems.

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Michael--actually, from an interview I read with John Barrowman, if "Company" had transfered, he was the one that was going to play Bobby.

Anyway, I personally like the OBC recording more, despite the annoying 70s orchestrations, because the singing is generally much better. Boyd Gaines is definitely a cool guy, but as previously mentioned he was not up to the vocal demands of the role (even though they lowered it for him). On the recording he actually sounds a bit sick to me--perhaps his vocal problems at the time had to do with things other than just the demands of the role (like nodes or something, I dunno).

I also think Debra Monk is terrible in "The Ladies Who Lunch." She sings it as if she were playing Mama Rose and this was "Rose's Turn." This is not an emotional breakdown piece, and her screeching is inappropriate and ineffective. Stritch is GREAT on the original recording. Not that Monk isn't talented--obviously, she is--she just had the wrong interpretation.

Baritone -- Are you sure about John Barrowman? I definitely remember reading about Michael Rupert, and in 1995, John Barrowman would have been 26 or 27, a good 14 years younger then Boyd Gaines or Michael Rupert. Somehow his casting just doesn't make sense to me, although he was on that awful t.v. show CPW at the time, so maybe they thought he was a name of some kind.

Thanks Hanna -- what a great read.

And this quote caught my eye in particular:

Pointing out that Gaines had not missed a performance since his return on Nov. 14, and that he had made both the recording for Broadway Angel and the videotape for the Lincoln Center archives, he said:

"How unfair it is to penalize an actor for having a virus. How unfair! You can't penalize performers who get sick!"

Interesting precursor to the controversies we've had the last couple of seasons on Broadway.

I was there the day that the Lincoln Center Archives filmed. Gaines fumbled a few lines. I was glad I saw the show, but I didn't feel it was ready for a Broadway transfer.

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I disagree about Dean Jones. I saw the original twice with Dean Jones and three times with Larry Kert.

Larry Kert and the wonderful David Carroll both brought much more complexity to the role than Jones did. You can hear Larry Kert's version at the end of the most recent CD.

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