Doyle's "concept" for Company- Page 4

[LePetiteFromage]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 9:48pm

Updated On: 5/7/09 at 09:48 PM

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 10:06pm

But cheese, isn't it possible that this production, with this cast NOT playing the instruments could have moved you just as much, if not more? I for one would LOVE to see this cast do this show, same set, lights and costumes (okay, maybe a LITTLE color) without the burden of the tubas and cellos and some of the weaker cast members could be replaced with stronger actors.

[BkCollector]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 10:14pm

Without the instruments, this production would have been bland and lifeless. I wouldn't have gone to see it, even.

Bottom Line: Doyle is an acquired taste, but anyone calling it a "gimmick" and calling him names is now just sucking on sour grapes. He's a force to be reckoned with, and if you're a fan, it behooves you to TRY and understand where he is coming from rather than just deriding it.

Or not, be whoever you want to be, but at least if you've given it a fair shake (and I mean a FAIR one, where you actually think about the idea as a good one and take up the contrary position as your own) then you can say you approached it with an open mind.

It's painfully obvious, SueleenGay, that you did not.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 10:24pm

Sue... guess you and I will have to accept that we are just a pair of sad artistic philistines because we aren't buying the trick Doyle is pushing with Company.

Somehow I think we can survive.

Updated On: 3/3/08 at 10:24 PM

[trinaaron]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 10:31pm

I don't see that concept represented anywhere in the book, the music, or Doyle's vision.

Really? Listen to "Another Hundred People" it references have an answering service explain things to supposed friends. We go out and find people but then "let it go" as if they were nothing, just like you can connect to people through the internet without really caring about them. That's the beauty of the material, it speaks to things that can be adapted to any time period.

The fact of the matter is, I was effected by the show emotionally, I didn't spend the entire time thinking, "oh, look at the symbolism!" The production as a whole worked for me without explanation, I'm just trying to intellectualize why for those who were not effected by it. There's no way to change someone's emotional reaction to something though and there's nothing wrong with not having a reaction to something others did. The show spoke to me and there's nothing else I can say. It did, I'm glad to have had the experience, that's what makes art great. Sometimes the best things can't be put into words.

As I was typing it I was actually thinking about that line. I just don't think Doyle put instruments in the hands of the actors with the intention of creating a barrier between the audience and and the actors, or between the actors themselves. That is more of a critical term people are using to describe their reaction to the play.

Allow me to say that I really did enjoy this. It made me think about things in my own life, especially my own marriage, in a way that I hadn't before. As you said, that is what art is supposed to do. I just think most of what I found touched me on a very personal level was because of the music, the book, and the actors. I also appreciate the minimalistic, stylized approach to the set. I think that fits beautifully. I just felt that the instruments, and the actors facing front while talking, were the exact same things he did in Sweeney. And since he used it there, I have a hard time believing any symbolism that is unique to this particular work.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 10:33pm

Well, BK, I sat down with the lights low and had the ringer on the phone off and watched the show from beginning to end. I did NOT have preconceived notions about it. I WANTED to like it, and in fact liked a great deal of it.
It is funny, because I felt the strongest moments in the show (Ladies Who Lunch, Getting Married, Marry Me a Little and Being Alive) were the ones where the people playing the instruments might as well have been in the pit.

But that is just me.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 10:39pm

I never saw Sweeney Todd or Mack and Mabel. I have the CDs of Sweeney Todd and Company and I've been watching Company on DVR. I'm lovin' it so far.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 10:40pm

You know.. if Company had opened first, I would not have looked forward to Sweeney Todd.

But after Sweeney Todd, I was curious to see how the technique would work with Company.

As far as I'm concerned, it didn't.

[AtLeastIveBeenThere]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 11:08pm

I can't speak for John Doyle, but here's what I personally understood as the concept:

The instruments that the actors play signify their “action” to harmonize with the others—to interact and find a song to play with their partners, the rest of society and each other.

If “Company” is about anything, it is about alienation. What motivates Bobby to sing “Being Alive”—what motivates his realization as expressed in the song—is his response to Joanne, right prior to the song: “But who will I take care of?” he asks Joanne, surprising Joanne and even himself. The “door…that’s been stuck a long time” that Joanne references is the door Bobby has locked himself behind—the one made of selfishness, that separates him from everyone else, and thereby stifles his ability to love, to understand love, to let someone else in, to be hurt, to “be alive.”

Notice that Bobby does not play an instrument until he’s made his realization in “Being Alive.” How brilliant of Doyle! Bobby can now sit at the piano and play his own music—play his own harmony—PARTICIPATE in the music-making that surrounds him, because he now realizes what life is about: it’s about GIVING as well as getting; it’s about taking care of someone as well as being taken care of.

Bobby says, “What do you get?” from love, marriage, and emotional connectivity to others—particularly given the failures, the stress it causes, the uncertainty and the foolishness (that we witness, scene after scene, relationship after relationship, throughout the play). He wants to know, “What’s in it for me?” Perhaps our emotional connectivity—our need to love others and be loved in return—is, in fact, foolish; but it is, as Bobby ultimately realizes, part of what it means to be alive, or to truly live…to “harmonize;” to pick up an instrument and play your part as a chorus or orchestra of many; to join in. “What do you get?” You get to EXPERIENCE LIFE.

Notice that Bobby steps out of the spotlight in “Being Alive.” It’s physically taxing for him to do this, and he does it right at the moment he sings “but alone is alone, not alive.” He steps, with much effort, out of the spotlight and into the dark. The spotlight goes out. Bobby no longer wants to be the one and only “star” in his world; he doesn’t want a single spotlight. He wants to be a part of the ensemble—a part of another’s life—a part of the (much fuller) music we make when we tune our “instruments” to one another and decide to play a song, together, as a connected, harmonized unit.

Updated On: 3/3/08 at 11:08 PM

[A Director]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 11:27pm

The concept behind using instruments in "Company" is an artistic use of a theatrical tool to reinforce the themes and further the characterizations in the show. Just like lighting, set design and costume design do.

Huh? When did actors playing instruments onstage become a theatrical tool? And why didn't poor Hal Prince think of having the actors in the original production play instruments to reinforce the themes and further the characterizations? Guess his production wasn't any good.

Another problem I had with Doyle's production of Company and his production of The Rise and Fall, is it appears that Doyle has brought back the old 19th century staging technique of actors not relating to one another and directly facing the audience.

I have read four reviews of Doyle's production of Peter Grimes and three were bad. Two called it a concert version. It appears that Mr. Doyle has only a few tricks in his directorial bag.

[BroadwayGirl107]

Posted: 3/3/08 at 11:39pm

"Actually, I think the concept works with Sweeney, in that it is a very theatrical, Brechtian show."

?!

Perhaps you are thinking of theory from a different period of Brecht's life than what is typically referred to as "Brechtian," but I am simply baffled by the idea of Sweeney Todd, in itself, being called Brechtian.


Doyle's Company worked infinitely better than his Sweeney Todd, in my opinion (though make no mistake, I think it was a very valuable production in some ways). In Sweeney Todd, a linear, plot-driven drama became a cluttered by dragging around instruments. In Company what was already a conceptual show had another conceit layered in that deepened and intesified what the text and music picks at. I don't think I would have been nearly as moved by Doyle's production had the actors not been playing instruments. Some of the most chilling moments were created through the characters and their instruments.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 12:03am

By Brechtian, I refer to the idea that the audience is aware it is watching "actors" play parts and there is no attempt to fool them into thinking the actors ARE these characters. In Sweeney, the actors directly address the audience, saying "we are telling a story here, this is not real..." which of course is carried through to the end. It is not a true example of Brecht's ideas, of course, but I meant that it is certainly more fitting a show to have "actors" pull out a tuba than Company.

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 12:08am

And for Sweeney Todd it is understood that you are in a madhouse and the actor/inmates are playing instruments .. not pseudo-symbolic extensions of themselves.

[LePetiteFromage]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 12:15am

Updated On: 5/7/09 at 12:15 AM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 12:23am

Sueleen -- I have no problem with being made to think or with my opinions being challenged. That's the root of a good dialogue. I do have a problem with words being put in my mouth. And if that makes me crazy, then so be it, I suppose.

I'm not going to get into too much of what I missed because I think LePetiteFromage put it all really well, so there's no need for me to re-hash everything she said.

There's a pretty significant Brechtian influence in Doyle's work, period; I think you can say that it was more overt in his prodcution of Sweeney, because of the to-the-front staging that allows you to read it with a "play within a play" interpretation, but Sweeney itself, as a piece, is not necessarily a Brechtian show.

Updated On: 3/5/08 at 12:23 AM

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 12:29am

"However, I think I would still have thought his concept worked with the show, even if I didn't think it was effective."

Huh?

So you MIGHT have thought the concept worked..but wasn't effective?

Or do you mean "as" effective.

[puppetman2]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 12:33am

Having seen the original Broadway production and a subsequent tour, I was looking forward to the telecast, but I could not watch more than 30 minutes. The actors playing the instruments was totally distracting. Bobby standing on the box simply made me feel sorry for Raul to be so stationary.

I taped it so could go to certain sections the next day and it just got worse for me.

[LePetiteFromage]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 12:34am

Updated On: 5/7/09 at 12:34 AM

[misschung]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 8:37am

Huh? When did actors playing instruments onstage become a theatrical tool? And why didn't poor Hal Prince think of having the actors in the original production play instruments to reinforce the themes and further the characterizations?

I think that Doyle is making this technique into a theatrical tool. None of us are saying that Doyle's production is "better" than Hal Prince's. But he is doing something new, and I think that the concept worked much better in Company than it did in Sweeney - even though I did like Sweeney.

[keen on kean]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 8:47am

To The Director - sorry to see you commenting on PETER GRIMES based on reviews. Try seeing it for yourself first. Makes all the difference. And, by the way, GRIMES has always been a difficult opera to stage because (like COMPANY) it is about alienation and rejection, so there is no warm and fuzzy emotion anywhere in it. Plus the music is so extraordinary that the best performance is probably the one that a listener imagines when hearing a recording.

I am interested in the fact that Doyle is drawn to alienation stories (other than MACK & MABEL, I guess). SWEENEY, COMPANY, GRIMES, MAHAGONNY. I love his work. I won't comment on GRIMES till I see it (late March).

[BroadwayGirl107]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 11:14am

Sueleen, the way it's done in Sweeney Todd is more Shakespearean than Brechtian. Brechtian alienation is supposed to be more about actors distancing themselves from the roles in a certain sense. In other words, if the actors playing Sweeney thinks he's a rotten guy, the actor plays him that way and can comment on it. Sweeney is a very emotionally driven show, and relies on the actors really getting behind some characters who would otherwise be seen as rotten. We're supposed to feel for Sweeney.

Either way, I don't think of the instruments as Brechtian any more than I would think of a character breaking into song or dancing in the middle of a scene as Brechtian. It's an artistic expression of the character and his wants or needs. I didn't feel, in Company that there was anything distancing about it. Quite the opposite.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 11:26am

I didn't mind the actors-as-musicians concept for SWEENEY TODD. What bothered me was the extra added concept about the whole thing being set in a madhouse, which I really thought just added nothing at all to the piece, and ultimately became a distraction.

I thought it worked better in COMPANY, largely because it was simpler. Just a play being performed by actors playing instruments. Worked for me.

[TheBoyDownstairs]

Posted: 3/4/08 at 10:04pm

"Bottom Line: Doyle is an acquired taste"

I couldnt possibly disagree with that statement anymore. For me, and all my friends who have seen multiple Doyle productions, feel the exact opposite. The first time you see the actor-musician thing you think "wow, this is so interesting and powerful" and then when you see it a second time you realize that the original time had absolutely nothing to do with that particular piece of theatre, but its just Doyle's "gimmick" and you sour on him quickly.

Personally, I think that there are certain pieces where this concept can still work, I think it worked beautifully in Sweeney, but Company is certainly not one IMO. Company is one of my 3 favorite shows of all time, but I think the instruments were far too clunky, got in the way, and really ruined the music of the show. I dont think a single song worked as well as it could or should have (even though Being Alive was still great, it could have been better).

In Sweeney there was minimal movement of the instruments, they were for the most part stationed at the sides of the stage, and they were mostly played by people not involved in the scene (outside of a few occasions). The fact that the instruments were moving all over the place in Company and were being played by people who were singing (especially in "You Could Drive A Person Crazy") was so distracting. And as I said, it really ruined the effectiveness of the music, instead of enhancing it as it did in Sweeney. In Sweeney the scaled down score gave it more of a creepy feeeling and in Company it just didnt work on any level.

As I said I adore Company, and I can honestly say I've never walked out of a theatre more disappointed than I did last February after leaving the Barrymore Theatre.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 1:47am

Brilliant, explanation, Emcee!!!! I saw this production at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and thought it was brilliantly conceived and DEEPLY moving. I then saw it on Broadway about two weeks after it opened and was thrilled to discover the performances had improved, the staging and musical performances had become much tighter and it was an over-all better show than in Cincinnati. I feel the idea of the actors playing instruments works much better in Company than it did in Sweeney Todd. John Doyle has taken this innovative approach to several musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof, Candide (not really a musical, of course) and Mack and Mable. I didn't think they instruments got in the way, if anything they served to define the characters/actors who played them. I think those who are being so quick to dismiss it as a fancy parlor trick should take a moment to reconsider what John Doyle was trying to achieve.

[nitsua]

Posted: 3/5/08 at 5:07am

Sue, did you ever think you just weren't smart or open minded enough to get it?

Personally, I believe everything I see in the theatre, movies or books. Suspension of belief lets me believe everything as truth. I forget about reality. The only reality is what is represented in the material.

It's very easy for me to accept anything.