Company - Themes, Thoughts, Opinions, Synopsis — Page 2

Doyle made it clear early on that the actor-musician concept was more a pragmatic financial one than an artistic one. He couldn't afford an orchestra so he went with actor-musicians and which characters played what instruments were largely a function of who showed up at the auditions and what they could play. AFTER THE FACT, people have made all sorts of interpretive leaps as to what underlying metaphors were at play in the particular instruments assigned to each character, but the fact is, Doyle never had some well-thought-out vision of any of this and he's admitted as much. Any "meaning" assigned to the instrument assignments is about an inch deep, because bottom line, the pragmatic needs of the score's orchestration took precedence over any artistic notions (which again came along after the casting was completed and the show was already on its feet). If there was so much meaning to a particular character playing a particular instrument, then why did some of those assignments change between London and here (and why don't the understudies' assignments match those of the people they're covering for)?

Reading too much into the "meaning" of any of this is a dead end. Which is why I say once again that this is all a gimmick. An entertaining gimmick to be sure -- the cast is remarkable -- but none of it organically adds anything to an audience's understanding of the book or score of the piece being interpreted and none of it clarifies aspects of or brings out meanings in plot or character, all of which is usually the point of a director imposing a supposed "conceit" upon an established work. It really wasn't a conceit. Doyle did it all for financial considerations (which incidentally no longer existed once the production went to the West End and Broadway) and all subsequent theories regarding the underlying meaning of the staging choices employed here -- while interesting -- didn't come from the mind of John Doyle.

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Updated On: 8/3/06 at 02:14 PM

You're absolute right, Margo (as always). Doyle said as much in "An Evening With John Doyle". However, he DID say that he wanted Pirelli to play the accordion, but for pragmatic reasons (I believe his exact words were "it's a moveable piano"). And, in fact, the reason that Pirelli ended up being played by a woman was because he couldn't find a male accordionist, yet knew of a female one. He also said that while having Anthony and Johanna both play cello was mere happenstance (both actors who auditioned for the role just happened to play the cello), he wanted to keep that conceit for the Broadway transfer because of its aesthetic value.

I agree with every point you bring up.

I do think there's something to be said for giving the audience the opportunity, through staging, to draw conceptual connections, and "meaning" that reflect not only on the story but on themselves individually.

I really hope that one day I know as much about theatre as you do, Margo.

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