Having seen the production in London, and again at the first Broadway preview last night, I suspect I will rather be in the minority opinion that notwithstanding some fun performances and some clever (and insightful) staging flourishes by Marianne Elliott - and despite the whole fascinating laboratory exercise of the entire project - that, for me, this gender swapped modern day COMPANY still doesn’t ultimately work, at least not with so much of George Furth’s original book in tact.
While more of the original book has been tinkered with since London, this concept for the musical's reinvention still relies too strongly on merely the changing of pronouns and genders to be fully persuasive - and while, like an acting class experiment, or playing THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON while watching THE WIZARD OF OZ, some fascinating things inevitably come out as a result, there is simply no denying the truth that if Sondheim and Furth had written this musical today with a female lead in mind, they would have largely written very different material and likely a very different musical.
Most of the changes are simply he/she swaps or awkwardly scanned lyric updates (‘Bobby really ought to have...a fella?’ Really, Steve?)
For me this continues to most be evident in the gender swapping of Bobby’s girlfriends - here to three rather unconvincing male relationships and, just as they did in London, with no real in-depth dialogue and lyric supposition, the male characters come across as rather effete archetypes. And while we’re at it, count me among those that think it would have been more interesting to have Bobbi here be overtly bisexual and to have made one of the ‘beaus’ a ‘belle.’
But in truth, every time I see a production of COMPANY (no matter the gender of the lead) I’m increasingly reminded how problematic - at least through a contemporary lens - Furth’s book really is. The protagonist of Bobby (Bobbie) literally has nothing to do for much of the show but watch a series of rather hamfisted sketches, leaving the poor actor with essentially a half scene and a song to make some kind of soul bearing epiphany.
Katrina Lenk, for me, even in a preview marked by the uneven pacing of a show which had (as Marianne Elliott told us before hand) but a single dress run before facing an audience makes about as convincing a case as possible for this rather thankless character - she is what Rosalie Craig in London was not: a nuanced and intuitively insightful actress. Lenk is not a vocal powerhouse (actually neither was Craig) and though I found her “Being Alive” revelatory (and one of the few times I’ve seen the song performed where the dramatic arch of the song’s narrative has really been convincing) I suspect her performance will continue to be polarizing for audiences who, no matter who plays the part, will find something lacking in the satisfaction of the character’s journey (see again George Furth) and simply want the thrill of Broadway belting as compensation.
The rest of the production is, I think, largely improved from London. For the most part, the casting is stronger and more authentic, and bits of staging, especially “Another Hundred People” are given a much better conception.
It being a first preview, the audience naturally went unrealistically nuts for much of it -- best in show, at least last night, likely still goes to LuPone, who to be fair, has had a year developing this character; and if Jennifer Simard and Chris Fitzgerald do everything but hump the stage (actually I think they even do that) to get a laugh, I’m sure some of that will settle as the show finds its bearings over the coming weeks.
I must confess, I was disappointed in Matt Doyle’s Jamie. Sure, Jonathan Bailey was better in London, but it’s also hard for me to imagine there aren’t better singing comedic actors they could have cast in the role for New York; I felt like, last night at least, the prolonged ovation after “Not Getting Married” was largely in recognition for the song itself and for the staging, rather than the performer.
All this makes me sound like I didn’t have fun last night - and I did. Any opportunity to see Sondheim on Broadway is a journey well worth taking. And I’m a big believer that there should be an opportunity for revivals to completely break the mold of what's come before -- But I do hope the creative team will continue to mine for new depths as the preview process unfolds. Putting this show back in its home city - the stakes, inevitably, are going to be higher...
**For those asking about the $59 'partial view' orchestra seats - I was sitting in row H on the far side (second seat from the end) and didn't have problems seeing anything. The set is made up of a series of box units and occasionally the beams of the squares block cut off bits of staging, but that's going to likely be true anywhere you sit downstairs.
Updated On: 3/3/20 at 09:51 AM
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