COMPANY reviews, take two

The AP is Mixed-to-Negative:

"Bobby baby, why can't you play a musical instrument? Fear of commitment or just not musically inclined?

That nagging question permeates much of director John Doyle's chilly, high-concept revival of Stephen Sondheim's "Company," which opened Wednesday at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Doyle, you may recall, is the man who had actors doubling as musicians in last season's critically acclaimed production of another Sondheim classic, "Sweeney Todd." He does the same here, as we watch perpetual bachelor Bobby gaze uneasily at the relationships of several married friends as well as his own dealings with single, available women.

That theatrical multitasking worked well for the grisly tale of Todd, adding a weird dimension to the already creepy story of a murderous barber in 19th-century industrial London. With the more modern "Company," first seen on Broadway in 1970 and revived there in 1995, double duty seems unnecessary, a bit pretentious and limiting to the musical ambitions of Sondheim's fine score.

As a result, the episodic sketches concocted by book writer George Furth loom larger and more lethargically than in previous productions.

______________________________________________________________


Bobby's indecisiveness is accentuated by Raul Esparza's fidgety, sometimes mannered performance. This man telegraphs his emotions even if he doesn't articulate his feelings.

At one point, Esparza poses like a modern-day martyr, standing weirdly as if he were St. Sebastian against a looming white column that divides the Barrymore stage. Unlike Sebastian, though, he isn't pierced by arrows but by the stinging barbs of his critical friends.

Those friends are played by actors, who, like Esparza, appeared in this revival when it was done earlier in the year at Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park. They are a likable group, but they rarely raise the show's theatrical temperature.

______________________________________________________________

The show may not always be joyous, but it shouldn't be funereal, which is what occasionally comes across in this production. Maybe it is the monochromatic costumes. Or the spare, almost nonexistent setting, which has the actors quietly sitting on stage — sort of like in the cemetery scene from "Our Town" — when they aren't performing. There's even a vase of lilies on the baby grand.

By the time Bobby gets to his revelatory moment — "Being Alive" — and sits down at the piano, we are more than ready for his enlightenment. Esparza, who has a powerful voice, gives it his all. The man finally surrenders to his feelings, and for the first time during the evening, we are touched."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/11/29/entertainment/e142146S73.DTL

---

I would call this mixed. Maybe?

LA Times

http://www.calendarlive.com/stage/la-et-companywebnov30,0,6086807.story?coll=cl-stage-features

"An enterprising sociologist with a theatrical bent might want to consider studying the Stephen Sondheim effect on marriage. Not to tilt the research in advance, but a certain Broadway musical from 1970 may have single-handedly upped the divorce rate in America.

Robert the commitment-phobe at the jaundiced heart of Sondheim and George Furth's Tony-winning "Company" is once again celebrating his 35th birthday and reviewing the miracles and miseries of monogamy.
-----
Raúl Esparza's charismatic portrayal of "Bobby" makes it easy to understand why everyone is obsessed with getting him hitched — he's too dangerously tempting a proposition as a single man. Better to have him married, mortgaged and fat. That way the worst he can do is have an extramarital affair, which, in the world of "Company," is a sin hardly worth confessing.

One would expect this kind of Doyle double-tasking to work even better for "Company," a book musical that plays more like a revue. Essentially a series of dazzling numbers thematically linked, the show parades onto the stage a series of married couples who could use something to do while dialing in their despair. So pass out the trumpets and orchestra bells, and let's watch them really make some baleful music together.

Surprisingly, the effect encumbers more than enhances Sondheim's vision. The production has its share of exhilarating movements and is definitely a welcome Broadway sight, but the staging doesn't hang together as a character study.

Yes there are times the band shtick cleverly highlights the subtext, as when Bobby's girlfriends diagnose his shortcomings in "You Could Drive a Person Crazy," with saxophone accents that sonorously indict their man as a repeat offender.
----
There's also one vertiginous moment of theatrical gaiety in Heather Laws' bridal basket-case rendition of "Getting Married Today" — the largest organ in the world couldn't stand in this performer's panic-stricken way.

Esparza, who scored a Tony nomination as the cross-dressing narrator of "Taboo," seemingly has it all — looks, a rich tenor and an ambiguous sexuality that lends everyone a little hope. What he needs, however, is a production that would allow him to pierce Bobby's aloofness, so that we could see what's underneath the compulsive push and pull of his amorous life.
----
In the "Barcelona" number, we're fleetingly offered such a glimpse. The scene involves Bobby and April (a fine Elizabeth Stanley), the airline stewardess he's just spent the night with. She wakes early to catch a flight to Spain while he, yawningly, tries to keep her from leaving. Esparza reveals what's behind the manipulative gesture — the emotional stirrings provoked by loss, only to be quelled once it becomes apparent what it would mean if she stayed.
----
Otherwise, Bobby's growing loneliness accrues somewhat too generically. There's not enough internal subtlety in Esparza's performance to justify his ambivalent epiphany in "Being Alive," the big finale in which he comes to understand that having someone to hold him "too close" and hurt him "too deep" isn't so much a ludicrous luxury as a basic human need.

---

Updated On: 11/29/06 at 09:12 PM

*anxiety*

Theatermania is pretty positive. This critic also reviewed the show in Cincinnati, so this is a "revised and updated version" of his earlier review.

"John Doyle's thrilling production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, in which the singing actors doubled as the show's orchestra, wowed critics and theatergoers in London and New York. Still, some observers wondered if a similar concept would be work for other shows. The answer, at least in the case of Doyle's reintepretation of Sondheim's Company, is a definite yes."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"I've always thought of this show as irrevocably tied to the time period when it was written and set, but Doyle and scenic designer David Gallo have effectively placed the action in a more or less timeless space that suggests a trendy Manhattan loft on the night of a swanky social gathering....

....Looming overhead is a huge lighting fixture that resembles a bunch of old camera flashbulbs/reflectors suspended upside down. Ann Hould-Ward's stylish costumes are virtually all black. Thomas C. Hase's lighting helps to create the sense of different spaces on the unit set and isolates the central character at key moments."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Raúl Esparza is superb as Robert, underplaying the part with offhand humor and the occasional wry observation until the penultimate scene. Bobby pretty much functions as a blank slate upon which the neuroses of his friends and lovers are writ, but in this extraordinary performance, the guy obviously has a whole lot going on beneath the surface. When he finally shouts "Stop!" to silence the nattering of his married friends, it's a primal scream from the soul, so violent and seemingly throat-searing that Esparza's subsequent, gorgeous singing of the cathartic "Being Alive" is all the more astounding."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"he show simply wouldn't work without the excellent orchestrations of Mary Mitchell-Campbell. One's mind boggles at the effort involved in rejiggering the great Sondheim score according to the abilities of the various performers. (I don't even want to think about what happens when a standby has to go on."

------------------------------------------------------------------

"Many thanks to Doyle for again proving it's possible to present a classic show in a bold, new way that doesn't violate the spirit of the work as originally conceived. "

Full review: http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/9538

That's more like it.

---

Updated On: 11/29/06 at 09:26 PM

When he finally shouts "Stop!" to silence the nattering of his married friends, it's a primal scream from the soul, so violent and seemingly throat-searing that Esparza's subsequent, gorgeous singing of the cathartic "Being Alive" is all the more astounding."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

LA Times:

"Raúl Esparza's charismatic portrayal of "Bobby" makes it easy to understand why everyone is obsessed with getting him hitched — he's too dangerously tempting a proposition as a single man. Better to have him married, mortgaged and fat. That way the worst he can do is have an extramarital affair, which, in the world of "Company," is a sin hardly worth confessing."

------------------------------------------------------------

"One would expect this kind of Doyle double-tasking to work even better for "Company," a book musical that plays more like a revue. Essentially a series of dazzling numbers thematically linked, the show parades onto the stage a series of married couples who could use something to do while dialing in their despair. So pass out the trumpets and orchestra bells, and let's watch them really make some baleful music together.

Surprisingly, the effect encumbers more than enhances Sondheim's vision. The production has its share of exhilarating movements and is definitely a welcome Broadway sight, but the staging doesn't hang together as a character study.

This may reflect an inherent flaw in the material — just what the heck is Bobby's problem with women, anyway? — but layering an additional level of abstraction on an already abstract work makes the protagonist's inner psychodrama seem that much more elusive. Too often a woodwind comes between us and an actor's truth and there's a flute where a revelatory expression should be."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"But somehow the various elements don't coalesce the way they did in Doyle's "Sweeney Todd." Granted, "Company" doesn't make it easy, with its segmented book and mysterious protagonist. But the actors aren't given many opportunities to fill in what missing."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Esparza, who scored a Tony nomination as the cross-dressing narrator of "Taboo," seemingly has it all — looks, a rich tenor and an ambiguous sexuality that lends everyone a little hope. What he needs, however, is a production that would allow him to pierce Bobby's aloofness, so that we could see what's underneath the compulsive push and pull of his amorous life...

Otherwise, Bobby's growing loneliness accrues somewhat too generically. There's not enough internal subtlety in Esparza's performance to justify his ambivalent epiphany in "Being Alive," the big finale in which he comes to understand that having someone to hold him "too close" and hurt him "too deep" isn't so much a ludicrous luxury as a basic human need."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's as if Doyle has blindly followed the advice in Sondheim's haunting ode to committed love, "Sorry-Grateful," and not bothered "to look for answers where none occur." Yet the composer earns his existential sentiment, whereas the direction is too busy foisting instruments on the actors to dramatically tune into the silent concert of longing."

Full review: http://www.calendarlive.com/stage/la-et-companywebnov30,0,6086807.story?coll=cl-stage

---

Updated On: 11/29/06 at 09:45 PM

We're not that stupid, Emcee, are we? As I mean we, the ones on the original board. We're just losers... forgive us?

Would you call LA times 'mixed'... or 'mixed to positive'?

---

Oh, whoops, I didn't see that Elphie had already gotten it.

No, I wouldn't give it the benefit of calling it positive. He's basically saying that the concept doesn't work. In fact, he straight-up says it's cumbersome and hurts the material.

---

Well, I guess it could be worse. Raul's reviews generally seem pretty positive, but they're saying his performance was hampered by the staging. I can't tell - do the reviewers have a problem with any of the score/book, or are the complaints largely with the staging?

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/theater/reviews/30comp.html

A present for all of you. Raul should start finding that spot on the mantle.
--
Excerpts:

"But if Bobby the bachelor, embodied with riveting understatement by Raúl Esparza, at first comes across as a man of ice, it becomes apparent that he is in a steady state of thaw. Given the subliminal intensity that hums through Mr. Esparza’s deadpan presence, you sense that flood warnings should probably be posted.

Mr. Doyle’s staging repeatedly and ingeniously echoes this isolating difference. Mr. Esparza is often found climbing onto the top of a Steinway or one of those transparent cubes as others crowd him. Sometimes he stands at a skeptical, uneasy remove as different groups serenade him: the married men with the haunting “Sorry-Grateful”; three girlfriends, all playing saxophones as if they were assault weapons, in a scintillating version of “You Could Drive a Person Crazy.”

But Mr. Esparza is anything but a cipher. Though his Bobby can seem as laconic and drolly unresponsive as Bob Newhart, you are always aware that this is a man in pain. As anyone who saw him in “Cabaret” or “The Normal Heart” knows, Mr. Esparza is generally a pyrotechnic actor, sending sparks and smoke all over the place.

In keeping the lid on such volcanic energy, he makes Bobby’s climactic explosion inevitable. Though he sings beautifully throughout — in ways that define his character’s solipsism — he brings transporting ecstasy to the agony of the concluding number, in which Bobby finally joins the band of human life."

Updated On: 11/29/06 at 10:23 PM

I seriously doubt anyone is going to be weighing in on the book and score. If someone had a problem with it, they'd have addressed it in 1970. I'm assuming anyone reviewing theatre now has at least seen a production of it before and are expecting anyone reading the reviews has as well. Kind of like how you don't have to site sources in research papers for facts that are common knowledge.

---

YES! YesyesyesyesyesYES!

---