Company Previews Thread- Page 28

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 4:35pm

bfreak said: "Now it looks like she’s back in the show tonight after all!



https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/patti-lupone-company-previews-return-broadway-1235057283/amp/"

This is great news. 

[BCfitasafiddle]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 4:42pm

Glad to hear she's back. Hopefully the set works tonight.

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 5:30pm

MattieIce2018 said: "According to a user over on Reddit, there was another show stop at the matinee today (happening now) after the opening, and it sounded like they were working on the set before the show. Anyone there right now?"

Essentially, a set piece nearly collapsed on to Lenk. There is a TikTok video that goes into more depth, but I’m not able to share it here since it does include illegal footage from the show. 

[binau]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 5:34pm

Yay!!!!

Updated On: 12/4/21 at 05:34 PM

[FirstNighter2]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 7:34pm

I’m in the audience tonight. Can anyone tell me what seat Sondheim sat in?

[Nolan LuPone]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 7:57pm

E1 Orchestra

[binau]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 9:38pm

WOW. Only at intermission but the show has improved SO MUCH since the west end. It’s like they’ve mined every moment for as much depth and humour as possible, especially and including Katrina who is giving an incredible acting performance and in my opinion unfairly criticised in terms of vocals. Rosalie who? 

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 10:08pm

binau said: "WOW. Only at intermission but the show has improved SO MUCH since the west end. It’s like they’ve mined every moment for as much depth and humour as possible, especially and including Katrina who is giving an incredible acting performance and in my opinion unfairly criticised in terms of vocals. Rosalie who?"

How is Anisha as Joanne?

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 10:09pm

binau said: "WOW. Only at intermission but the show has improved SO MUCH since the west end. It’s like they’ve mined every moment for as much depth and humour as possible, especially and including Katrina who is giving an incredible acting performance and in my opinion unfairly criticised in terms of vocals. Rosalie who?"

Can’t wait to read the rest of your thoughts!! I’m sure Patti is on fire tonight. 

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 12/4/21 at 10:11pm

ljay889 said: "binau said: "WOW. Only at intermission but the show has improved SO MUCH since the west end. It’s like they’ve mined every moment for as much depth and humour as possible, especially and including Katrina who is giving an incredible acting performance and in my opinion unfairly criticised in terms of vocals. Rosalie who?"

Can’t wait to read the rest of your thoughts!! I’m sure Patti is on fire tonight."

Sorry... I didn't see that Patti is back in! Excellent!

 

[orlikethecolorpurple]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 1:15am

I was also there tonight. Just thrilling top to bottom. Patti got about a minute’s worth of applause after her first line and a standing ovation after Ladies Who Lunch. The audience was in her corner so adamantly - both grateful and electrified. Chills. 
 

Matt Doyle, Jennifer Simard, and Christopher Fitzgerald are turning out comedic gold and I fell head over heels for Katrina’s Bobbie. Cool, sexy, relatable, and did not find her performance "cold" at all. I adored her vocals. Wept like a baby during the final verse of Being Alive and didn’t miss the belting so many folks seem to feel is a requisite for the song.
 

What a night (with no tech issues!).

Updated On: 12/5/21 at 01:15 AM

[binau]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 6:45am

What a roller coaster. As soon as Patti started calling out I was getting a little nervous and the deadline article was like a stab to the heart. No disrespect to Patti’s understudy of course but there is only one Patti LuPone and given the events of last week it was only more important that Patti was there for me. I held onto my tickets and planned to go just in case and shockingly this paid off. The box office confirmed Patti was in but I still felt uneasy at dinner right until the time got closer and indeed the understudy board was blank. It was particularly annoying that someone at the bar then appeared to say to a customer Patti was out that night. A race to the board once more and check with an usher to confirm Patti was in. Sorry but people need to really need to make sure they know what they are speaking about, it’s quite frustrating.
 

I saw the west end version 3 or 4 times, including the very special and high energy final performance that if I recall Sondheim was in the audience for. I thought it was almost perfect, but I have been taught how to see again. As soon as Katrina walked out and I saw how much information she was conveying in that opening scene with her facial expressions I knew something was very different. Her acting in the role is just next level - she is mining every scene for the subtext with her face and eyes. It makes her Bobbi seem much more complex than Craig. There is this undertone of emotion and jadedness in her performance, that maybe she isn’t quite as happy as she seems to her friends, and it makes her performance so much more interesting to me than Craig’s.

Her Bobbi is much cooler, much sexier and much more ‘New York’ to me. She is too attractive for her own good, intimidatingly so. and it’s very very clear how and why she has power and is able to date some of those very very attractive men. In comparison, Craig was much more kind of goofy warmer personality - someone you feel you just want to be her friend but not a force. It sounds like some people might want the kind of fuzzy warm Bobbi Craig was and I can see why it might have its fans but I will take the emotionally complex version any day of the week in a Sondheim show.

Of course I was worried about the singing after the reports here but I didn’t think much of Craig’s singing anyway and while at her peak maybe Craig’s voice was less thin (I also saw her when she also might have been sick and it was considerably worse), Craig’s voice was sweet and serviceable but boring. Katrina acts the hell out of those songs and there is just enough interestingness in the timbre of her voice that it’s just not a boring sweet voice and there is some vocal acting going on. Someone is Waiting was better than the clips I’ve seen and Marry Me A Little was surprisingly powerful - the rain heightened it and made it a show stopper. A great improvement to mix things up a bit as the west end staging for the three songs always felt a bit too samesy. Maybe she also just happened to be in good voice too of course.

In general the production is the same blueprint but I am impressed at how they have not just decided to trot out the working formula and indeed make so many minor adjustments or enhancements in the set and transitions to improve things. I will admit I was a bit scared for Katrina when she went through the ‘trap door’ thing though and I hope there are safety redundancy systems to prevent accidents! The effect is that it’s like they’ve turned the show from Blu-Ray to 4K resolution. Of course the biggest change is the complete restaging of Another Hundred People, which just didn’t work in London where it was a literal subway tube with cringe dancing. I don’t know if it completely works now either but it’s so much better as is the actor who sings the song and plays the scene. In London he felt like a creep and those vocals were annoying but here the guy’s look is EXACTLY the right one and those ass lines now work.

In general every cast member equals or betters in both the singing and acting of the west end cast. It’s funny despite Katrina being a force ironically she also fades out because the cast around her are so strong. I want to call out Jennifer Simard in particular who should be nominated for a Tony and in the future people won’t understand why in such a small role unless they were there. Those line deliveries and physical humour. Just so so funny.

I want to acknowledge I did think Jonathan Bailey had a bit of charm and sparkle that might have added something here but Matt Doyle is perhaps more technically there with the singing. Patti’s addition to the Tick Tock scene is new right??? Or at least, I don’t remember it the same way - maybe a new costume or something. Speaking of Patti, it’s clear she is much more known in NYC than London and the audience entrance applause was so exciting. She always gave 100% in London and does here too. She was already perfection and is giving a very similar performance in my opinion so I can’t say she has bettered herself but that’s fine. It’s hard to know how she could get better. In London though without quite the same strong cast I would say she stood out even more too but that’s ok. She should win the Tony and I hope they can record some of her dialogue because some of those bitchy line readings “he’s not who you’d call” feel iconic and it’s like the role was written for her. In fact we deserve PS classics to just record the whole damn scene. PLEASE.
 

I LOVED “Being Alive” and was not disappointed at all even after following Patti. I’m glad that crying is coming back because despite what people used to say on this board 10 years ago of course I think the heightened emotions if done tastefully can heighten the scene. The whole scene seems perfectly tailored for Katrina’s abilities. Making it more introspective rather than trying to have her belt it out where she might not have had the voice.

Last, not to get too personal but the show felt like a celebration of how much I love New York and Sondheim, and how much it has changed my life. 14 years ago I heard “Epiphany” for the first time not knowing anything about Sondheim or much about musicals but simply being in awe at how the song transitions from the angry rage to the devastating “I’ll neverrr, seeeee Joannasaaa” - for the first time I realised music could be used to reflect the emotion of a character. It started this addiction, this ‘passion’.

I had no idea that moment would lead me to find so many other moments in so many, many shows - much of them Sondheim. It was those “your eyes, George” lines that made me fall in love with Bernadette’s voice and it just kept going and going.

Over the years I have had to chase that ‘high’ in New York and saw my first Broadway show, Sondheim on Sondheim. For the next ten years I feel so privileged to have seen Laurents’ WSS, Donna in Whistle, CZJ and Lansbury; Bernadette and Stritch in Night Music, Bernadette and Maxwell in Follies, Jake G in Sunday in the Park.

It is a privilege to now see Company here, the last Sondheim show he ever saw on Broadway, in this perfect production at this perfect time in my life. And also to celebrate this amazing, amazing city that is unlike any place I’ve ever been to in the whole world. And one that speaks to me now more than ever. In 2010 in New York City I was spending every cent I earned to chase the rush of this city - how amazing to see Bernadette in a Sondheim show then open up Grindr and be able to hook up with a Broadway ensemble member. It’s so New York and these experiences changed my life.

Now I sit in the audience, older with a 35 year old partner that doesn’t know anything about musicals who ‘ruins my sleep’ and ‘puts me through hell’ and makes me alive and the shows just keep speaking to me. In the backdrop of an awful global pandemic. I could cry at how much this city and Sondheim means to me and what it’s like to be back - and it’s so weird that no one really gets it except for a small group of people on this board. Even people on this board perhaps don’t seem to understand the pure ecstasy of what it was and is like to hear Bernadette sing and act that final verse of In Buddy’s Eyes.

What a time to be alive. I feel so lucky. Don’t take this city or Broadway for granted there is no where else. It’s my favourite place in the world. People think I’m obsessed with musicals but they just don’t understand the magic that is there. I love that we all here do. We are so lucky.

Updated On: 12/5/21 at 06:45 AM

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 7:17am

Binau - Thank you for such a great, thoughtful, and personal post. It brought tears to my eyes. I agree with everything you said. This production of COMPANY is just so special to a lot of us on here. As always, I loved reading your post.

[n2nbaby]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 7:33am

Love your review!! I cannot wait to finally see this in a few weeks!

 

A thing of note, though. Sondheim’s last shows were actually Dana H. and Is This A Room? the day before Thanksgiving.

[binau]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 7:36am

Sorry I meant the last of his own shows he saw on Broadway :). 

[LexiGirl]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 10:43am

A roller coaster indeed! I was at the Saturday evening performance last night, too. I had been nervous all week with reports of Patti being out and all the tech issues. Then was so disappointed when I heard Patti would be out both shows Saturday. I woke up Saturday morning with a hurt foot where I could barely walk, so I said, “That’s it. I’m going to ask Telecharge for a refund.” They refused, saying it wasn’t confirmed she’d be out, so that gave me a tiny bit of hope. I drugged up, trotted my way down there, and was so thrilled she was in. What a glorious night! No tech stops, Patti being her amazing self. So glad I finally got to see her perform live. I knew Katrina Lenk would be a wonderful actor, but I had low expectations for her singing. She doesn’t have an effortless voice, but she sounded great. I was so grateful for this production and all the other shows I saw on my trip. 

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 10:44am

Very moved by Bineau's post.

Reminded me of the summer I was 19, when I saw a matinee of Follies (4 months into the run, full original cast, 7th row center) and the evening performance of Company (near the end, Jane Russell era; the originals had departed, save Susan Browning; first row wide orchestra). A day that burned a place in my memory. Much revisited this past sad week. 

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 12:12pm

Thank you for the lovely posts from those who were there last night. Binau, I know how much this show and Sondheim means to you, and I am so happy you got to experience it with the full cast and no malfunctions. 

This production really means a lot to me, and I don't get to see it as often as I'd like to, so reading so many thoughtful reviews on this thread is special for me. 

 

 

[angoradebs]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 12:35pm

Does anyone know if Row A is really the front row for side orchestra like Telecharge shows? It looks like previously there has been a Row BB on the side, but it doesn't show up on the telecharge seating chart.

I've sat in row D before at this theatre and didn't love much I had to bob my head, was really hoping to avoid that by buying front row and now I'm worried I haven't actually gotten front row at all.

This picture (taken from the Mezz) does make it seem like there is AA & BB in center orch and that side orch starts at A, but I can't really tell how many seats are there so I'm not 100% sure: https://aviewfrommyseat.com/photo/151604/Bernard+B.+Jacobs+Theatre/section-Mezzanine+R/row-E/seat-23/

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 12:37pm

Yes, row A is the first row on side orchestra. I've sat there. It's a lovely view, even the the partial view seats. 

[lovebwy]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 1:08pm

orlikethecolorpurple said: "I was also there tonight. Just thrilling top to bottom. Patti got about a minute’s worth of applause after her first line and a standing ovation after Ladies Who Lunch. The audience was in her corner so adamantly - both grateful and electrified. Chills."

I think in the past two years during the pandemic something happened. I think Patti became a living legend. 

binau I live in Los Angeles, and I only come back to these boards when I travel to NYC, and I always enjoy seeing your posts. So glad Patti was IN for you last night. Your post above moved me. You're right, we should all be grateful for the bounty of talent and greatness NYC has offered.

I'll be seeing Patti on the evening of the 22nd. Can't wait!
 

 

Updated On: 12/5/21 at 01:08 PM

[Balthazar Chasen]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 2:58pm

Claybourne Elder impresses.  I've been following him on IG for months.

The Roundabout Theater Company did a limited tour of COMPANY in 1999. It was the first tour to use revisions from Company's mid-90s revival. Peter Reardon was in it. Does anyone know anything about this small tour?

 

[angoradebs]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 3:02pm

ljay889 said: "Yes, row A is the first row on side orchestra. I've sat there. It's a lovely view, even the the partial view seats."

Thank you!

 

[Martijn-j]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 3:09pm

This is probably too soon to ask, but what are the chances of this production being filmed for future cinema or streaming release? 

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 3:15pm

beautiful, binau. i dont have any of the connections/emotions you mentioned re Company, and yet i was also flying high on a cloud from this production.

i remain completely befuddled by anyone thinking Lenk isnt singing this score beautifully, let alone adequately. and its true, her beauty/mystique does give a bit of depth/layer to her Bobbi, even if I think its a difficult role to put off. The cast of rock stars around her does her no favors. 

And while I'm glad you got to see Patti (who is great at doing Patti), i really would rush to see Anisha in the role, just so i could see something new/different with that part. Hope it runs a long time.