The End of COMPANY: 'Being Alive' or 'Happily Ever After'?- Page 2

[wiggum2]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 4:47pm

I love Larry Kert's version on the sondheim celebration with the scrabble cover

[artscallion]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 6:56pm

If you're at all a Sondheim fan, get the CD of Marry Me a Little. For those of you who don't know what the show is...Craig Lucas met and befriended Sondheim while in the Chorus of Sweeney Todd. Sondheim later gave him permission to write a musical built from songs cut from Sondheim's shows. There's a slight story about a man and woman who live in the same building. But it's really more of a review. Each song, and its original use, is discussed in the liner notes.

Side note: I worked with Craig while he was developing his play, "God's Heart." He hated his singing in Marry Me a Little. I would tease him by threatening to play the CD over the theatre's intercom system. He would bribe me with cookies not to.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 12:06pm

Just my own take on it:

They shouldnt have had a song at all. Seriously. One thing that Prince and Sondheim have often said about the show is that they didnt want a resolution, that the audience would have to decide for itself what Bobby was going to do. I wish they'd stuck with that.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 12:20pm

If audiences would flock away from a show that didn't have literal-minded sets, just imagine a show that didn't have an ending song. The thing would have closed in one night.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 1:15pm

Like everything else, it depends on who's at the helm. We've all seen directors and writers do some pretty audacious things and get away with it.

[Jon]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 1:25pm

My dad was in the very first regional production of COMPANY (1972, I think). It was at Little Theatre on the Square in Sullivan, Illinois - a "star" summer stock theatre. Janis Paige played Joanne. It was directed by the stage manager of the Broadway production. He got permission from Sondheim to use "Happily Ever After" at the end of Act 1. It was very effective.

[jewishboy]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 1:37pm

Do you have any memories of Janis Paige? I would have loved to see/hear her in this role.

[misschung]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 4:27pm

I don't think Being Alive is that conclusive, though.