Daniel Evans in Company — Page 2

I could check to see if they're selling replicas at the merchandise stall, Joe?

They were navy blue and white.

More practical but not as nice as the Follies cushion pillow methinks.

Updated On: 12/7/11 at 02:12 PM

Company stagings seem to fall into "It's a comedy" or "It's a serious drama" modes. The recent all-star version with Neil Patrick Harris was noted to have heart, and know where to get serious, but to overall emphasize the comic tone, while the Esparza revival was noted for its grim, cynical quality, featuring Bobby as a borderline depressive semi-alcoholic.

Looks like Evans is more in tune to the "drama-Company" than the "comic-Company."

Which way do YOU prefer?

Ah, but you didn't see Betty Blue Eyes...

Although I saw the public dress rehearsal of this production I'm not posting my opinion until I've been back to see it again later in the run.

"Ducks. Runs for cover."

So you should. I know your post is mischievous but I'm going to bite the bait anyway. To work backwards through it:

"They think everything has to have dark underpants."

Wasn't the problem with the London production of Follies that they jettisoned the dark undertones? And it was the American book writer who did most of that.

"They used to, back in the days of Gilbert & Sullivan and Noel Coward, but somehow they forgot."

So which of Noel Coward's musicals are great musical comedy? I don't think I've seen one. His plays might have the reputation of being great comedies but, in the wrong hands, they can easily become dated and tiresome. He did write some nice songs but I couldn't tell you if they were from a musical and, if, so which one.

As for G&S, I've grimaced my way through HMS Pinafore and am not likely to repeat the experience. It's not too difficult to tell they were written when universal education was still in its infancy. Aren't they supposed to be satire as well - satire that has got lost in the mists of time.

We still do satire very well (Jerry Springer, The Opera) but of course that too has dark undertones. Interestingly Jerry Springer, The Opera grew out of the 1990s alternative comedy circuit which featured many American and British comedians mocking musical comedy as an acting style. Hence the authors (unsuccessful) attempts to disassociate it from musical comedy. It may not be as good a musical comedy as Book of Mormon but I suspect the satire is a lot sharper.

"The British don't know how to do musical comedy."

Are we talking authorship or performance here? There are arguments in favour of this but there is also evidence to the contrary.

If authorship, then Half a Sixpence, The Boyfriend and Me and My Girl are successful British musicals in the traditional Broadway idiom. And let's not forget there's a lot of dross in the Broadway back catalogue as well - let me rush off to my turntable and get out my LPs of those timeless Broadway classics Ernest in Love and First Impressions. Or even The Utter Glory of Morrisey Hall. Wasn't there once a Bronte combo musical comedy called Jane Heights?

If performance, then there have been London casts of Broadway musical comedies that have exceeded their Broadway equivalents way beyond the time of G&S and Noel Coward: from Promises, Promises (no doubt someone will come in with the obvious caveat but it doesn't suit my stance to post it myself) through On the Twentieth Century to Hairspray.

But why should I care? The whole lesson of my life has been to stop seeing matters in terms of black and white and to see them in shades of grey. As such, musical comedy with dark undertones (and dark underpants) suits me just fine. And, since Sondheim himself has said he would wish his audiences to leave the theatre humming his tunes and then to go home and have a sleepless night, I suspect his works have exactly the effect on me that he'd want.

Updated On: 12/8/11 at 09:16 AM

There's actually quite a bit that plunks it into the 70s. The fact it was written in 1970 pervades basically every scene- slang, phrasing, references, mindset.

The recent revival didn't so much place it in the present as it did place it nowhere. Even listening to the things the characters say... they can be pinpointed as not being from the present.

The themes may be timeless but the piece is definitely set in a time.

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I think it does work better with some of the book scenes almost played like (and I already hate myself for using this word) a sitcom. Maybe that's one reason the concert worked so well with sitcom actors. I think the show has more depth than most (all?) sitcoms, but that's the best way, for me, to pull off much of Furth's dialogue. The Doyle staging suffered partly due to not doing that.

Sea--I firmly believe it does work as a period piece, byf ar the best. I hate to use the term period piece, because I don't think it works if you kitsch it up in over the top 70s style, it's not retro in that sense, but it simply has too much that bugs me when it's moved up to the present setting. I still think it's only recently that modern productions keep it in 1970. The Sam Mendes and the Roundabout revivals in the mid 90s 9which is where the revised script comes from) kept it "contemporary".

yes some of it is details--lyrics like "my ervice'll explain", references to Freudian Analysts, and Mahler (who were very 1970 New york and less so now), etc. But it's more than that--I think elements like a cosmopolitan couple never having tried, and still being silly about pot, for example, or the general way that the men regard women (which I don't think is over the top sexist, but it also doesn't ring true to the average 20 somethings I know now), etc.

Follies is never updated to "now" (partly because that would make the showgirls ancient, but...) Why should Company be?

I assume this version used the largely updated libretto (some of which I like--I have no issue with the gay scene for example though there again I think even the wording of it makes much more sense in a 1970 context), but I admit to prefering the even more abrassive Joanne of the original, etc (and by now everyone on here knows how much I think Tick Tock should be included--I assume it wasn't here. Though it has been kept in some updated versions like the Roundabout's with Charlotte D;'Amboise dancing it).

This site isn't liking me much today--I meant to add as well that I DO think the actual music--even without those great original orchestrations--is, while not dated, does at least have some 70s sound. I know in that old 1970s YMCA lecture Sondheim did he mentioned that it was sligthly inspired by pop music of the era like Bacharach.

I need o hear these two last scores--I wonder if they're a zillion times better than anything poor Sondheim wrote.