First, I want to apologize because I know I'm not being very articulate today. I'm having one of those days where it's just difficult to get your thoughts out on paper. Or the screen, as it were. So, for anything I posted that didn't quite click, I'm sorry.
Anyway.
Sueleen: Yes, I did misunderstand what you wrote. Again, apologies. But, on the same token, the moment with the kazoo really conveys the same thing, through the metaphor of the instruments. Bobby doesn't have a partner. Those musical lines are actually, I believe, based on the tap lines you hear in the original.
If the point was to show how couples cannot truly connect, even the married couples, why were Bobby and April and Bobby and Kathy allowed to get so close? The scene leading up to Barcelona and that song should have been played at opposite sides of the stage, it that is the "concept". I don't think that was really the point. I think a huge element of this production was the fact that a great deal of what Company is about is our inability to fully connect with one another. And so the staging, as I understand it, was meant to convey that inability, but not to say that the couples
cannot connect at all. There's still something there; there's all the good that Bobby sees. Isn't his realization ultimately that you've got to accept the bad with the good if you ever want to be with somebody? If you tried to make the point that there was
no connection, how would that realization ever make sense?
I do agree with what you said about the use of the lack of physical contact, though, and that it could have been played up more; it's most overt during the karate scene, and then much more subtle throughout. But it's there. Look at Bobby and April: they have sex, perhaps the most intimate of interpersonal acts, but they never take off their clothes (other than her jacket).
It is a very strong choice, but to stretch it through three dispartate shows (at least) as Sweeney, Company and Mack and Mable just says it is a "signature gimmick" that he can bend to fit into any genre, not a choice made as a director to fully illustrate the themes of one particular show. Sweeney was staged with the actors as the orchestra due to financial constraints at the Watermill. (It wasn't the first time he'd used actor-musicians.) It moved to the West End and obviously became a pretty big success. Someone from the producing team at the Cincinnati Playhouse had seen Sweeney in England, loved it, and asked Doyle to stage a show there with actor-musicians. He chose Company. I don't know very much about how his production of Mack and Mabel came about, but I think what's happening now is that his work has caught on, and people are asking to have it done.
All of that being said, I realize that to those who think Doyle is just a gimmicky one-trick pony, this is probably going to look like I'm blindly making excuses for something I loved. Yes, I will defend it because yes, I loved it and I believed in it very, very much; but something about the way Doyle tells a story really spoke to me, and I also think I've developed a pretty solid understanding of the way it all worked. I hope you this doesn't come across as though I'm trying to convince you to buy into the concept. That's certainly not my intention; if I learned anything from those heated threads when the show was running, it's that if you don't see it, you're probably just not going to see it. And so if you found it distracting, that's fine. I can accept that without trying to change your mind. I'm just trying to help provide the explanation you asked for.
A work of art is an invitation to love.
Updated On: 3/3/08 at 03:05 PM
But I looked at it from a perspective of knowing that everything was very deliberately decided. Because the show was so stylized, it made sense to see it as part of that. Maybe I over analyzed it. Maybe it was just more convenient not to get naked, and it just so happened to work anyway. 
