Company and Suicide

why do you assume it was the most recent revival?

there was no suicide...

No, last night at the Lincoln Center talk, Frank Rich said that Sondheim is known for being very liberal in terms of what he allows to be done with his shows, and then asked him for some examples of things that he hasn't been okay with. One of the things Sondheim talked about was a British production of Company in which Bobby killed himself at the end.

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Ohhh I see. Thank you for the correction then. Kind of strange that I was still able to find something about it relating to the recent revival. Still though - ending "Being Alive" with death just makes no sense to me.

"Being Alive" is about being alive.

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I once saw a production of Company where I wished Bobby would kill himself. But only because his diction was so sloppy. He kept singing "Being Galive, being galive, bee-ing galive".

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PalJoey said it all.

This thought never crossed my mind.

Ridiculous.

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Updated On: 1/21/09 at 10:44 AM

I've known people who absolutely insist there is evil/dark symbolism or foreshadowing in absolutely everything they watch. I'll never forget, after the fourth or fifth Harry Potter book, a friend of mine absolutely believe Harry Potter would turn into a dark wizard at the end of the series and replace Voldemort. He insisted that the books were completely obvious about this direction in the story line. He said the same thing was obviously going to happen to Luke Skywalker if the final trilogy were to be completed. For people like that, it is simply an immature way to create drama and controversy amongst peers. The Company Suicide Club is the same. They would rather find some way to make anything dark because they believe they lack the creativity to accept what was actually written or intended. In similar fashion, I've seen immature directors exploit Christianity in an offensive manner with a huge amount of personal pride simply to shock audiences in shows or numbers where controversial political statements simply aren't warranted. It's like trying to reflect personal opinions on gay marriage or the Iraq war in the dream ballet of Oklahoma. It's total self-indulgence.

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To be fair, several of the Sondheim shows are dark: Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, Assassins.

Of course. I was just speaking of those who go out of their way to try and find it in anything. They would somehow try and deconstruct an episode of Rainbow Brite to try and prove she's a serial killer just to appear cool.

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Any director who feels Bobby should kill himself at the end of Company should never direct again.

Company is certainly dark, but that doesn't mean it should or does end in death.

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I'll never forget, after the fourth or fifth Harry Potter book, a friend of mine absolutely believe Harry Potter would turn into a dark wizard at the end of the series and replace Voldemort.

My friend and I were sorting Shakespeare characters into Hogwarts houses the other day, and she did NOT like my assertion that if Harry Potter were rooted in reality, the bad guys would've won. I mean, all the successful kings in Shakespeare's Histories were Slytherins, and the Ravenclaws were summarily deposed. Hufflepuffs have a fairly good survival rate, but never achieve *much*, and Gryffindors all rush into death far too readily.

You want over-analysis? I'm RIGHT here.

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Weez: We should form a club... or make a thread in which we can post our clearly-we-thought-about-this-too-much ideas

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