COMPANY Screenings Are Extremely Limited- Page 6

[CompanyFan]

Posted: 6/17/11 at 9:44pm

I saw this last night, too. No intermission but no technical glitches either. The theater was about 3/4 full.

I LOVED it. I'd seen the show at Lincoln Center (and, of course, loved seeing it live). My only complaint was that our seats were really far back. (I waited too long to decide to fly to NYC for the performance and all the good seats were gone.) Anyway, I loved having the opportunity, last night, to have a close-up view of the actors.

This is my favorite show, and I like it in any incarnation. I think Raul Esparza IS Bobby, but NPH was just great.

When I saw the show at Lincoln Center, I thought "Another Hundred People" was probably the weakest number (and it's one of my favorite songs from the show). My favorite couple was Stephen Colbert and Martha Plimpton. I am a Mad Men fanatic, and I thought Christina Hendricks was very good as April.

I would definitely recommend the show for first-timers as well as long-time lovers of the show.

[pc1145N2]

Posted: 6/17/11 at 11:35pm

I saw this show on Wednesday in Chicago. The theatre was full but not sold out. The crowd was very into the show....laughing at the right places and clapping after every song. No intermission.

I'd never seen Company performed before, just heard the songs individually. I can't wait to get the CD....should I get the most recent (Raul Esparza)version?

Favorite Moment: Ladies Who Lunch! Amazing.

[Barcelona]

Posted: 6/17/11 at 11:55pm

The 2006 version is great, but the orchestrations are very different than the ones used in this production (which used the originals)...the original recording will sound more similar

[backwoodsbarbie]

Posted: 6/18/11 at 12:33am

I saw it last night in a sold out theater in Washington and loved it! Though I liked Raul Esparza's Bobby better than Neil Patrick Harris' Bobby I liked this production better overall than the 2006 Broadway revival. I thought Martha Plimpton and Katie Finneran were standouts in the all-star cast.

Here is my review if you are interested!
http://backstagebarbie.blogspot.com/2011/06/toast-to-that-invincible-bunch-my.html

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/18/11 at 11:27pm

I've been listening to the Boyd Gaines recording of the show on the CD player in my car. I wish I'd been able to see his take on the role. As you know, Boyd was experiencing serious health problems during the run of the show and James Clow played just as many performances as Boyd. Every time I saw it James was playing Bobby (and wasn't satisfactory in the part).

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/18/11 at 11:35pm

I thought Clow was satisfactory. The whole thing was satisfactory. I don't know how audiences got through the Doyle version, but I only saw the recording. Well, as much as I could stand. Maybe you just had to be there.

Posted: 6/18/11 at 11:37pm

Did Clow sing Gaines' transposed lower keys?

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/18/11 at 11:38pm

Namo, I have to say that when Clow was playing Bobby, there was no doubt that the character wasn't straight. I've seen him do other work that was excellent, but in COMPANY he was definitely light on his feet.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 12:21am

light on his feet

I detest that expression. It reeks of mildewed chintz.

Posted: 6/19/11 at 12:38am

...and dated homophobia...

[CompanyFan]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 8:09am

I loved the 2006 revival for one reason--Raul Esparza. He really was that good as Bobby. Seeing him live was one of my favorite Broadway experiences.

In fact, he made up for the rest of the show.

The Lincoln Center version of Company was actually more enjoyable overall.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 12:12pm

I finally saw this the following day because I was at the NYC theater with the technical problems. I have a LOT of thoughts, but for laziness' sake I won't go into exhaustive detail. I absolutely disagree with the need to force the show back into the 70's, but overall I still really enjoyed it; to me, after everything, seeing any version of Company is just sort of like seeing an old friend. And when enough time has gone by, I feel like I fall in love with it all over again. I had this goofy grin plastered on my face the entire time, even in the moments when I was moved to the inevitable Company-tears.

I thought everyone was really well-cast, though I was most disappointed with Patti. I felt like she just got up there and said the lines and sang the song without giving much thought to the depth and the importance of what she's saying to the show. If you fail at the Joanne-Bobby relationship, as far as I'm concerned, you fail at the show as a whole. You can still do everything really, really well, but you've missed a part THAT crucial. This may have just been a sound thing, but I thought that vocally, the group numbers sounded horrible. Everyone sounded fine on their own, but awful together. The group numbers were pretty meh, but I found something to love, rediscover, laugh at, or see differently in every single one of the couple scenes, and that was what really made the experience so enjoyable for me. I know that show so well that I could do it in my sleep -- so if you can surprise me, and give it something I hadn't really thought of, that's all I can ask for. Special mention to Colbert, JLT and Christina Hendricks on that.

NPH is someone I've always wanted to see as Bobby -- in fact, if the revival had run, he's who I would have picked to replace Raul. So it was kind of strange when, once he was actually about to play the part, I suddenly got sort of nervous and skeptical. I was worried that I would see NPH-doing-Bobby, and not this character I'm so much in love with. I don't think anyone will ever play the part, at least in my eyes, as beautifully and devastatingly as Raul did; I'm too in love with everything about that production to ever be fair, and I know that. But NPH definitely won me over, as I guess I knew he would all those years back when I wished for this. He sang it much better than I thought he would. I think he sounded best in Marry Me A Little. There were few surprises from him for me, but I still think he gave a lovely, charming, careful performance that reminded me why I fell in love with this character in the first place. My only big Bobby disappointment was in the staging: the final image was such a throwaway. Totally stale.

I thought Tick Tock was awful. If you're going to do it, you need to DO IT. I hated having the five (or whatever) dancers, and the choreography was really bland. Maybe that's just because I've seen the original and it's magnificent, but that was really disappointing. If you're going to include that number, make it count, give it some punch. This version was just like some kind of weird interlude.

The orchestrations were stunning, particularly in Another Hundred People, where they were pearl-clutchingly gorgeous.

Points to Lonny Price for making it clear that Bobby does indeed have a mirror above his bed. Because he so would.

It was a much more cheery, straightforward, literal production than the Company I met five and a half years ago. But I liked that it was so different. Throughout the whole thing, I couldn't wait to get to the next scene because I was so curious and excited to see how they were going to do it. I had to choose between seeing this and going to Shakespeare in the Park, and it was a tough decision but I think it was definitely the right call. It made me miss that magnificent year, but, my God, I saw Company on a movie screen. Bittersweetness and all, I had to be there for that.

Updated On: 6/19/11 at 12:12 PM

Posted: 6/19/11 at 2:41pm

Great review and thoughts. I'm someone who thinks Company needs to be set in the 70s--so much of it just doesn't make sense if it's meant to be "now". Did you think this version was shoved back too hard into the 70s? i thought it was subtle enough that it worked without seeming too "period".

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 4:55pm

I saw it today with my sister and my mom, and we had an interesting conversation afterward about our thoughts on this production. For all of us, our first exposure to Company was a few years ago when I was in seventh grade and my sister was a freshman, and her high school (now mine) did a production of the show. The three of us (myself, her, and my mom) went to see the show and we were quite impressed with what a high school managed to pull off. I remember thinking just how funny that show was. About a year later, I watched the DVD of the John Doyle production and I fell in love with it. My mom watched a few parts of it, and my sister watched about ten minutes before deciding that having the actors play their instruments was just too distracting. I watched that DVD more times than I care to recall, and I really got the feeling that I understood what Company meant and how beautiful it is. I wasn't sure, though, if it was because of how much I had matured in that year (which was really A LOT more than you would expect from someone that age) or if the high school's production was unsatisfactory. For my mom and my sister, this production was their first time seeing the show since that high school's production, and they both said that they didn't "get" it the first time, so it was nice to finally understand that the high school's production was not exactly as good as I remembered it. I'll get into more of that later.

In this production, I liked the cast for the most part. I thought that Stephen Colbert, while hilarious, had a really annoying, nasally voice that did not do much good to his song, but that was my main area of discontent with the cast. I liked Anika Noni Rose a lot more than most people here did. I think someone mentioned that she didn't really hit the mark with the song until the last verse, but to me, it felt like the intention was for the song to build, which I thought it did nicely. Neil Patrick Harris was good, but on certain high notes, his voice felt kind of empty, especially with the memory of Raul's beautiful voice that I have listened to singing the score so many times.

I completely agree with Emcee about setting this in the 70s, although this wasn't as "in-your-face" about it as I expected, which was nice. It didn't get too distracting, so I won't complain about it too much, but I feel like although some lines don't make complete sense today, the ideas and the material still feel modern, and putting it in a specific time frame takes away from the timeless quality I feel that it has.

I appreciated that they included Tick-Tock, although my sister felt that it was just too much. I didn't understand the need for the bedsheets and the four other dancers, and I thought that if they were removed, it really wouldn't matter. I also thought, though, that the previous scene did enough to say the point of the dance--that Bobby and April are just having sex, not actually making love. The scene was the most suggestive that I have ever seen it, so having the dance kind of beat the point to death. If they had just let it slowly settle in, the dance would have played much better. Also, I didn't get as much of the difference between the first and second parts as I did having watched Donna McKechnie (did I spell that correctly?) on youtube, but really, nobody can ever do any of her dances to her level.

I really liked Patti's Joanne. When we saw the song first performed by a high school performer (who was quite good, and still very talented, just not up to the depth of the character, as most that age wouldn't be), all I got from the song was "it's funny because she's drunk, and she's spilling her drink, and she's drinking to Mahler..." etc. After that bare-bones performance seeing it done as it was intended--as a three-act play, the third act being a self-analysis, I was amazed with how much depth and meaning the song had. Previously, I knew that there was probably something more to the song, but I had never cared for it. So, for me, with my standard being someone who really didn't understand the song, anyone who can do the song well gets my applause, and I thought that Patti really nailed that last part.

Seeing this production and discussing my high school's production, it really cast a shadow over what I thought was a bright and great theatre program at the time. The production was even chosen to go down to the "all-state" festival--a privilege that is competed for quite ferociously, especially in our area of the state where there is quite a bit of funding for these programs. The judges who decide which musicals to bring to state see the production and then ask the actors questions about the show to see how much they understand the material, which I now know was very little (my sister says that after seeing this production, her image of the upperclassmen she once looked up to went way down because she realized that what she loved was the material, not the people in it). What apparently happened during this was one very good member of the tech crew (who is now studying to be a director, which I'm sure she'll be great at) had to do all of the explaining of the purpose and meaning of the show. Not a single person in the cast understood what happens to Bobby throughout the course of the show--not even the actor playing Bobby. The director didn't care to explain what had to play through for it to really work (not that he really understood everything) and the Bobby/April scene was really just awkward. Now, having seen quite a few more of that director's (who everybody at our schools thinks to be the best director who ever lived) productions, and having been in one myself, I know that he has a big problem with misinterpreting things and not really saying the things that the show really should say. I know that's kind of a big thing to ask from a high school director, but I get annoyed with these things.

Because I waited a full year after seeing that production before watching John Doyle's production, the high school production has really become my standard for Company, and I find any production that goes above it to be really amazing. I don't really like this idea that much, but I guess I'll always be in love with those show, no matter how good or bad the show is.

[kdogg36]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 5:24pm

I agree about being set in the 70s - I think it would be distracting for audiences today if they tried to "update" the show when it has such a reconizable 1970 sensibility.

However, I've often wondered whether the same will be true in the future. There will be a time (decades or maybe even centuries from now) when "the 1970s" won't mean much to anyone, but I suspect Company will remain relevant to audiences. At that point, I think you could set the show in a different time period, because those 1970s touches won't be distracting.

[jasonf]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 5:51pm

Anyone know how much money the movie showings made?
I can't find it anywhere...

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 5:53pm

Right. I think you can just DO the show without going out of your way to costume it like it's the 70's, and make certain moments really cheesy and uber-period like that. I'm not talking about updating the text, that's a totally separate issue. I think the 2006 revival was able to take the show out of the 70's, at least explicitly, and make it absolutely relevant to modern audiences without changing the text. It certainly didn't stand there and go "HEY LOOK I AM 1970," which I definitely felt like a lot of the visuals in the film/concert did.

And to respond to Eric on the same subject: I definitely think the Philharmonic version could have been a lot more shove-it-down-your-throat, but I also wouldn't call it subtle, either. How I feel about this issue is obviously deeply rooted in the fact that my first experience with Company was the John Doyle revival, which was not at all period, so I've always understood it that way. Even though I knew the show's history, I saw it that way first, and it really impacted what I've always thought possible for the show. I absolutely think it makes sense if you set it now; you have to shift the paradigm some, but I think that comes to it very naturally, and to the audience very naturally: it's not about the sexual revolution anymore, and changes in what it means to be married or single, it's about interpersonal connections, their difficulty, their failure, their beauty. There is nothing period about that.

Updated On: 6/19/11 at 05:53 PM

[Huey's Pop]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 6:44pm

I saw the Sunday matinee in Long Beach, CA. The theater was about 25% full. I had seen the original production way back in the early 70s when it was in Los Angeles. I enjoyed the new version more -- perhaps because I was in my early 20s when I saw the first version, and now I'm 40 years older and the story has a different meaning for me.

Rated A+. I'm so glad I came. (What we need now is a drink.) Wait, that's from Follies. Nevermind.

[madbrian]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 7:18pm

I saw the noon performance in Paramus, NJ today. I had been at the opening night performance in Lincoln Center, and while I loved the performance that night, I feel like I now have a much better appreciation for it having seen it on screen. I wasn't a fan of LuPone's take on Ladies Who Lunch at the Sondheim birthday concert, but it's light years better here. I want to see Colbert and Plimpton together again real soon; their chemistry was remarkable.

By the way, the theater was almost completely full.

[daisybeetle]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 7:29pm

Saw it today at a multiplex and paid $18, but quite frankly could have bought a $7.50 ticket for The Hangover and just walked across the hall to Company since no one was checking tickets at the door.

Then there were technical difficulties throughout the entire show. The screen must have froze 50 times. During songs, punchlines, etc.. People were MAD! It was like watching a bad streaming video on the computer. We got free passes at the end for another showing on Tues.

I enjoyed what I did get to see, but problems were a downer.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 7:39pm

I wonder why so many theaters had a problem with the playback. I consider myself lucky that the showing I went to went off without a hitch.

I agree with what Em said about Tick Tock. I thought that was the only part of the show that really didn't work for me. Having five dancers was overkill and I found the dance to be not much more than flapping those shiny sheets around. But that's really the only thing about the show that I thought stuck out as "wrong."

To me, the show IS entrenched in its 70s sensibility, which is one of the reasons why the 2006 revival didn't work for me. Plus I just kind of found almost all of the characters to be unlikable in that version, whereas in the concert production I found every character to be extremely likable.

Oh, and another thing I didn't like was Kathy's outfit. She looked like a schoolteacher from Ohio which, to be fair, I guess could have been the point.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 7:47pm

Hah, my friends and I were saying the same thing. That outfit was dreadful!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 7:52pm

So were me and mine! We wondered if she'd pissed someone off. All the other women had fun and/or flattering outfits on and she was wearing that boring long dress and sweater!

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 8:10pm

Bad fashion: bringing Company purists and radicals together since 2011.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 6/19/11 at 9:39pm

I think it was overall a great production, considering the timeframe in which it was put together rehearsals wise...NPH did a great job with so little time to prepare. I wonder what his performance would have developed into if it had the luxury of a Broadway rehearsal period. Same for Patti - her concert version Mrs.Lovett was quite different to her Broadway Mrs.Lovett...so this is not necessarily the performers "definitive" portrayal of the characters if you know what I'm trying to say - although I guess with this recording, it is now!