COMPANY reviews, take two- Page 3

[Luvinbroadway]

Posted: 11/29/06 at 11:50pm

Not to be a downer..but they need more than the TIMES to run...Sondheim fans are already shoe-ins to buy tickets..they need a broader public..
Sweeney had all around consistent raves and at least some star power with 2 Tony winners..and had a limited albeit finacially lucrative run...I wonder how a larger audience will respond to these luke warm to negative (except the Times) reviews?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 11/29/06 at 11:53pm

Of course a show would be better off if it got consistent raves, but the Times is overwhelmingly authoritative. If you get a rave from the Times, you're golden. I mean, do people really listen to Talkin' Broadway or whatever else? Sure, some, but in large numbers?

[Luvinbroadway]

Posted: 11/29/06 at 11:57pm

I know you like the show Emcee...you must have over 50 posts on the topic...I thought it was fine not great...but the Daily News reaches an audience too (different than the Times)!

[Luvinbroadway]

Posted: 11/29/06 at 11:59pm

Updated On: 11/30/06 at 11:59 PM

[Luvinbroadway]

Posted: 11/29/06 at 11:59pm

Updated On: 11/30/06 at 11:59 PM

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:00am

That writer from the NY Daily News is a wretched theatre critic. Where the hell do they find these people?

[Luscious]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:14am

I'm sorry, but I just don't take the NY Daily News seriously when it comes to theatre reviews. It reads like a fifth grade book report. Where did they find that imbecile?

Updated On: 11/30/06 at 12:14 AM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:14am

My liking it isn't the issue, though -- realistically, the Times has authority, no? I was always under the assumption that it... did, even though the others certainly get audiences. Audience outreach aside, too, there's just the prestige of the name.

Anyway, munk, I thought the same thing. How does he even have that job? I laughed at half the things he said.

[Luvinbroadway]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:15am

Agree..but it reaches a HUGE audience too...
I hope Company has a long and healthy run..but even Sondheim with all raves struggles.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:16am

Times is a bonafide rave.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:17am

Well, there have been many shows that got raves in the Times that didn't return their investment - having a rave in the Times may help this show's chances for winning the revival Tony or a Tony for Esparza? but it won't guarantee ticket sales to keep it open until June...

[Luvinbroadway]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:20am

"the Times is overwhelmingly authoritative. If you get a rave from the Times, you're golden"..
Tell that to the producers of Side Show!
:)

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:21am

Okay, you got me. Sweeping generalization. But it helps! :)

Eh, call me cockeyed optimist.

Updated On: 11/30/06 at 12:21 AM

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:22am

The problem with Side Show was that it was sorta awful

[Luvinbroadway]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:23am

I'm a cockeyed optimist too!

Long live Company! and a big old Tony (first of many!) for Raul!
Updated On: 11/30/06 at 12:23 AM

[DG]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:28am

I'm afraid that what this will ultimately boil down to is how it is marketed to the tourist crowd. Can it be made to look engaging and entertaining? Then it will sell to them. Historically, that doesn't bode well for pieces of this kind.

I think those who respond to it need to embrace the experience, and be thankful they had the opportunity.

One of my all-time favorite projects - THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS - which I only got to experience through the cast recording and a PBS broadcast - only played NINE performances on Broadway.

If you see this, and it touches you, relish it - the memory will be with you forever. Who CARES what everyone else thinks?

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:31am

Well it doesn't matter what other people think, but if a piece of theatre touches you greatly, you can only wish for the show's success, and you can only hope that thousands and thousands of people will flock to see it. It's how I feel about GREY GARDENS. I think it's brilliant. I want it to succeed and I want other people to experience what I experienced. It's human nature.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:34am

That's exactly right, Munk. I don't really understand the hysteria on this board surrounding COMPANY but I understand people wanting the show to succeed because of how it has affected them personally.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:36am

Well, in some cases, Esparza causes the hysteria. I think he's insanely talented, but the WICKED-esque fan girl obsessions that follow him are truly baffling. I enjoyed COMPANY, I just didn't think it was a brilliant production. Certainly good - great even - just not brilliant. IT left me cold. I do hope to return to see it soon, and I do hope that it succeeds.

[Shiksa Goddess2]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:40am

I don't *really* care if the whole world hates it, it's not like that would change my opinion of it. I love it, and I'll still have my experience with it which meant so much. My only request is that it stays open until December so I can see it again (I saw it in Cinci). That said, since I love the show so much, and the actors involved, of COURSE I want it to succeed, and Raul to get a Tony, and for as many people as possible to go see it and be touched by it like I was.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:44am

I can't remember who it was that posted this, but someone did. They suggested that those who saw it early on and were left sort of cold by it might want to return to see how it's evolved, if they can. And if you can for a moment ignore my major, major bias, it has. Having watched it develop, the changes may clear up some of the troubles people had with it.

I think Munk nails the logic behind what DG said beautifully; when something touches you, you only hope that other people are going to see it and feel the same way. There's validation in that, but you also want to see something you love succeed and be loved and well-received.

I got on a plane eight months ago to see one actor's performance, and I came home in love with a show that I never thought would impact me. I went for him, but he could never have kept me hooked like this on his own. And... I want people to feel the same way. At the end of the day, even if it's not a success, I know I'm going to make the best of it while it's here, and enjoy it while I can. And when it's gone, I know I'll remember it forever. That's what really matters, in the end.

Anyway, here's another one. This one actually talks about Raul's bisexuality.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aNza4JFNdtls&refer=muse

Updated On: 11/30/06 at 12:44 AM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:44am

Um......

So, what did I miss?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:45am

The kids ate the babysitter. :)

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:49am

The Washington Post is a Rave:

"In his Broadway revival of "Sweeney Todd," he gave the lovably bloodthirsty Mrs. Lovett a tuba. Now, in "Company," John Doyle places bachelor-hero Bobby behind a piano. And once again, the new notes this innovative director teases out of a Stephen Sondheim musical combine to produce a novel symphony of buoyant surprises.

Doyle won a Tony in June for his deconstruction of "Sweeney," in which the actors sang the show from a bare platform and doubled as members of the orchestra. In a musical so rooted in the ghoulish, having the actors provide their own accompaniment was less violation than inspiration -- as if the Sondheim characters, both the maimed and the monstrous, had been asked to play at their own funerals.

"Company," the 1970 show now set in a contemporary Manhattan of affluence, neurosis and ennui, seems a less likely fit for this kind of meta-theatrical tinkering. There was the worry that the production, coming so soon after "Sweeney," would seem like mere opportunism, an attempt to artificially extend the life of an esoteric concept.

Turns out the anxiety was misplaced. If skepticism is in the air as you walk into the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where "Company" opened last night, elation is the feeling walking out.

Invigorated by the brooding charisma of Raul Esparza, in the most controlled and captivating performance of his career, Doyle's "Company" proves a marvelous showcase for Sondheim's artistry. Many of the songs in this savvy, inventive musical -- whose importance seems only to grow with time -- are handled as wittily and tenderly as you are likely to hear them.

Esparza's renditions of "Someone Is Waiting" and, especially, the climactic "Being Alive" thrillingly expose the central tensions in this story, about a man afraid of intimacy who learns he can't live vicariously. For this revival, Esparza has been given another solo, "Marry Me a Little," cut from the original production. The song sends us into intermission with just the right taste of bittersweet.
______________________________________________________________


The important thing is that Esparza makes Bobby believable: He's a man who lives at arm's length from his feelings and as a result, is in danger of imploding. Doyle's concept aids in the view of Bobby as a man emotionally ill-equipped: for most of the evening, he's the only one who doesn't play an instrument. (It isn't until the final moments that he really tries to plunk out a tune by himself.) If the assorted grotesques of "Sweeney" seemed at home with strings and brass, so do the more familiar types of "Company." In the privileged, overachieving circles they inhabit, they now seem like just another group of multi-taskers.

Doyle's musical device never feels intrusive, but it's more effective when it's used to advance, or at least embroider, Furth's comic vignettes."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112901565.html

Updated On: 11/30/06 at 12:49 AM

[Allie]

Posted: 11/30/06 at 12:49am

Not quite a review, but the most recent ATW Downstage Center interview features John Doyle!
ATW with Doyle