PalJoey said: "I was 14 when Company opened and quickly became obsessed by it. I ended up seeing it four times: once with Dean Jones and three times with Larry Kert.
The documentary about the making of the album is so powerful and moving, and no one who had ever seen the documentary but NOT the original production will believe me, but onstage Dean Jones was cold and withholding, to the point of being uninvolving. His "Being Alive" was, frankly, unmemorable.
Speaking as someone who saw the original production four times, Larry Kert was far superior.
(And though Stritch was a revelation, Barbara Barrie was my favorite of the women.)"
I was 12 and saw it twice, both times on Saturday matinees with John Cunningham going on for Larry Kert as Bobby. I am sorry that I never got to see Kert, but Cunningham was a dashing Bobby. Barbara Barrie was my favorite of the wives, too, although all of them were memorable.
I did see the Company cast reunion in 1993 in Southern California. It is hard to imagine Dean Jones being as you say, he was so very engaging it felt as though the world was finally seeing the show as it was meant to be seen, but I will take your word for it. If he was as miserable at the time as all reports claim him to have been, it was probably inevitable that it would affect his performance.
