Is the Company 2011 Philharmonic DVD still happening?- Page 3

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/12/12 at 8:04pm

I think that's a good point--and one that further makes the attempts to update the show into the current age not (IMHO) work at all.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/12/12 at 8:29pm

"It's an oddity of a show called "Company" that the affable "Bobby" of the lyrics doesn't bear much resemblance to the cool, more distant "Robert" of the book"

It's not an oddity. It's a weakness.

[darquegk]

Posted: 8/12/12 at 9:11pm

In that case, I wonder why no one has ever thought to simply change his age in some of these revisions from turning thirty-five to turning forty or thereabouts? The number is never mentioned with any major importance- if it were forty, nothing would change, but the implications would be much clearer.

It would, in fact, make a few moments in the show (both original and revised) make a bit more sense. The squeamish, nervous reaction of relatively young and hip inner-city New Yorkers to trying pot for the first time always rung false, but fortysomething Bobby and his older friends trying it hesitantly for the first time works in a better "generation gap" way.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/12/12 at 9:11pm

Thanks, darquegk, for the added perspective. I was 17 when I saw the OBC and while I didn't find Kert decrepit, I did think of him as on the cusp of middle age, as you put it. My parents were only 39 that year, to take but one comparison that was meaningful to me at the time.

And as you also point out, nowadays, we think nothing of someone reaching 35 or even 40 without settling down.

The Doyle version is the one major incarnation I didn't see, so thank you for your account of it.

***

ETA I disagree about the pot. I found it entirely believable in the original. The 30-somethings in the play are the generation that came of age in the 1950s. That a middle-class married couple of their generation had never tried pot made perfect sense and jived with the claims, at least, of my parents and their friends. (Robert, of course, HAS tried it before and that makes sense because he dates younger, more bohemian types like Marta.)

By comparison, there were still plenty of liberal arts colleges in the 1950s that had strict dress codes and required weekly attendance at chapel. And those weren't just the religious schools!

I think that scene has to go if the play is set in the present day. I find it much harder to believe that a couple of people who were 17 in 1995 or even 1990 has never tried pot. And even if they haven't, they'd have a much different attitude about it.

Best to keep the play in its period. I agree with Eric on that.

But I've let my own thoughts wander from your point, darquegk. Yes, it might suit contemporary frames of reference to make Bobby 40, even if the period of the show stays the same.





Updated On: 8/12/12 at 09:11 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/12/12 at 9:21pm

It's not an oddity. It's a weakness.

Your hurry to be an asshole interferes with your reading comprehension skills. In the post you quote, I said the contradiction had always kept the show from fully succeeding for me until Neil Patrick Harris found a way to gap the divide.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 12:24am

^

It's a defect.

And Dean Jones was better than all of them.

P.S.

I think you mean bridge the divide..






Updated On: 8/13/12 at 12:24 AM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 12:26am

Ok. And...?

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 5:12am

I think you mean bridge the divide.

Yes, I did. Thank you.

Fortunately I got "asshole" right.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 7:19am

You sure did!

It's a long bridge to gap, anyway.

[johnpressman]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 12:24pm

Gaveston, you and I are the same age, both of us saw the original production of "Company" at age 17.

Your comments about the generation portrayed in the play, also known as the "Silent Generation", those born between 1926 and 1946, make perfect sense. They were the earliest married and had the most children, as opposed to us "Baby Boomers" who married later and had the fewest children.

The pressure to conform was the primary theme of that generation, in keeping with the theme of "Company". They were overshadowed by the heroic "GI Generation" and were too old to enjoy much of the sexual freedom evidenced by the Boomers.

While I found your comments intelligent and enlightening, I found your referring to a board member as an asshole for expressing his opinion, childish and inappropriate.

Updated On: 8/13/12 at 12:24 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 9:23pm

John, After Eight wasn't expressing an opinion, he was voicing his usual attack on anyone who has the temerity to appreciate Stephen Sondheim. In this case, I'd actually described what I see as a fault in the show, but apparently I didn't voice it strongly enough to suit After Eight.

But you are right that it was childish and inappropriate of me to take the bait.

I hope you'll believe me that I and others have run out of mature and appropriate responses to that poster on this and every subject. Obviously, silence is the only response left.

***

Back to being 35 (or 39) in 1970, my father fancied himself very much the playboy, but even so I doubt he tried marijuana until he started dating a woman who was my age. Alcohol was the drug of choice for that generation (as we see in more than one scene of COMPANY). It was obvious in the way they talked about pot that they had never tried it.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 9:32pm

Interesting you say that, as one of the changes made to the script in the 90s was decreasing the alcohol (specifically Joanne drinks less--and is less nasty in general, maybe because of it :P--and the story about one of the husband's drunken arrest decreases the amount of bottles of wine he claims he had --I think from 6 or 7 or some insanely high number to three).

I actually can't remember if the Harris version reverted to the original script in those instances or not. I do find it interesting that fans go on and on about all the changes in the script to Follies, but many don't seem to realize just how much of Company was re-written for the revised version.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 9:35pm

"John, After Eight wasn't expressing an opinion,"

I was expressing an opinion.

"In this case, I'd actually described what I see as a fault in the show, but apparently I didn't voice it strongly enough to suit After Eight. "

You didn't express it properly.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 9:40pm

And he just admitted that! Gah! (And yes, "Gah' is my way of expressing myself properly).

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 9:42pm

I don't watch MAD MEN, but I take it from articles on the show that it accurately reflects the consumption of alcohol and nicotine in the 60s and 70s. The "three martini lunch" was called that for a reason. Hell, my high school drama teacher didn't attend a rehearsal without a thermos full of Beefeater's. I don't know about 7 bottles of wine, but I think the original script was an accurate depiction of alcohol consumption in the period of the plot.

I don't know why quantities of alcohol were changed in the 90s script, but I wonder if Firth thought that the amounts in the original made the characters seem like raging alcoholics two decades later. Maybe he decided we would ignore the characters' other qualities once we deemed them "drunks".

Before the laws on drinking and driving became so much stricter, I knew a lot of people who drank like Joanne. They basically "sipped" all afternoon and evening without ever considering themselves "drunk". We'd probably call them alcoholics today.

Updated On: 8/13/12 at 09:42 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 10:25pm

Confidential to Johnpressman: I can't send you a PM, but I want to thank you for the slap on the hand. I needed it.

In the long run, I am much happier responding to everyone in a civil fashion.

Updated On: 8/13/12 at 10:25 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 10:27pm

I was actually thinking of Mad Men because, while it's currently set about 5 years before Company, they are dealing with midlife crises issues (though Don Draper is meant to be 40 now, I believe). And yes, knowing someone who does tend to sip booze from noon until bed, we would call them an alcoholic now.

For anyone curious, there's a great overview of all the changes made to Company in the 90s here: http://www.sondheim.com/commentary/company_rewritten_1.html

(I got the amount of bottles wrong--it was merely 5 in the original, then changed to 3)

[darquegk]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 10:49pm

Don Draper is the closest we'll get to a traditional, 1971 Bobby ever again. I'm glad you brought that up. Neil Patrick Harris is the epitome of the new Bobby, but Don Draper's journey IS Robert.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 10:55pm

Thanks for that, Eric. Very interesting and I still agree the play is best left in 1970, answering machine or no.

***

Well put, darque, as usual.
Updated On: 8/13/12 at 10:55 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 11:06pm

Yes. I have to say, I do like using Marry Me a Little as an act I closer, and I overall like the "gay scene" (partly just because it addresses an issue that so many people have brought up), but otherwise, mean Joanne and all, I'd just use the original script. The Harris production did include a lot more of the original script, but until the DVD I won't be able to go over how much of it was used.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 11:15pm

(I also have to say the new scene for Kathy during Another Hundred People is wonderful, and improves a character who otherwise seems to exist only so Michael Bennett got to do a dance number--and don't get me started about productions that cut Tick Tock...)

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 11:17pm

I agree about "Marry Me a Little" and I thought Joanne was plenty and gratuitously mean in the Philharmonic concert, but it sounds like she was even worse in the original.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 11:22pm

Again, I'll have to check with the DVD, but I believe *some* of her meaness was reinstated from the original script in the concert.

[darquegk]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 11:23pm

I'll admit, I'm not quite such a fan of the mean Joanne. I think it ties into both the alcohol culture and the time period, but today, someone like the original Joanne is a socially aberrant person (like that blog about the changes points out). NO ONE can act like that these days. The people who come closest are the ones for whom the nastiness is mostly show, and presented in a humorous sense. Look at every character Jane Lynch has ever played. Coach Sue Sylvester is a perfect example: a woman who is selfish, petty and immature (like Joanne often appears), but at the same time is witty, clever and tongue-in-cheek about it. Her threats and barbs have the faintest glimmer of irony, or, wait for it, heart, behind them.

Joanne, on the other hand, is an aggressive, drunken monster who threatens violence and shouts down everyone who vaguely annoys with her. No real wit to it, no sense of irony. Just genuine antisocial personality disorder. Is it more "real?" Maybe. Is it true to 1971? Possibly. But it simply begs the question- maybe a question that wasn't asked in that era- why is this woman Bobby's most intimate friendship? She's a bitch! And not a bitch in the post-feminist, semi-ironic sense of a woman who speaks her mind and has an aggressive and assertive attitude. No, Old Joanne is a bitch in the bitchiest bitch sense. For better or for worse, she's become a snarky society lady (and apparently, like Bobby, grown somewhat younger over the years).

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/14/12 at 12:01am

Good point. While I kinda like the original Joanne, I think you're right that a character like that would be far less acceptable to modern audiences. (I hate when people complain about Sondheim's characters being "unlikeable"--as if likeability should be a factor for who we are willing to watch on stage, but, as you say, in this case it's more about why they would even tolerate her).

And this is extremely anal of me, but I can't stop myself... It was 1970, not '71.