Silsby Samizdat

Company

John Doyle's Company?

It. Was. Amazing!

Disclaimer: A friend asked me if I like everything I see.
No, I just don't waste my money seeing shows I don't think I will like. And I haven't been disappointed, for the most part.

We got front row student rush tickets (thanks to my friend who was on Spring Break and therefore didn't have to teach that day, so he could get to the box office right at 6:00!) It was almost like being on stage. So much was happening around us, and I could see the veins in the actors' hands when they were really working it.

The conceit of Doyle's Sweeney was the same in this Doyle's Company, but it had a different feel, and still worked. This was a smooth, cocktail dress and dinner jacket show, with rocks glasses and martini glasses firmly in hand. The instruments were classy and added to the whirlwind going through Bobby's mind. Lots of people swirling or marching or whatnot at Bobby with their instruments, while he stood there instrument-less.

They also took out all the 70s waa-waa pedals. This was a crisp, concert looking orchestration.

I knew that "Being Alive" would bring me to tears, but I didn't think that "Ladies Who Lunch" or "Side By Side (By Side)" could do that. The staging of "Side By Side" was amazing. The "tap dance" sequence was replaced by instrumental duets. Each pair of married people would do a call and response duet for their couple measures,
standing on opposite sides of the stage. When Bobby's turn came, he pulled out and played a kazoo, and
everyone turned to look at the response... of course there was no one there, just a bright, harsh white light on the podium where every other duet partner had stood. During the big ending part, where everyone is going crazy and twirling their instruments around like a big-top parade, Bobby is just continued to stand in the same spot at the edge of the stage, bathed in white light, staring motionlessly at the empty spot on the opposite side of the stage, while everyone else is in a red wash parading crazily around. Heart breaking!

Then, "Ladies Who Lunch" was done most amazingly by Barbara Walsh. She started it out, as I assumed Elaine
Stritch did in the original, with a brazen drunken toast to a crowded bar. She starts off just kind of fun and drunk, second verse gets louder and meaner, then the last verses turn introspective and devastatingly personal, intense and focused. As she is hauntingly, pleadingly calling for "Everybody rise!", the pianist stops playing and nervously backs away from her, leaving Joanne to sing, call out, plead the final "rise"es in hollow, unaccompanied, echoing desperation. It was very reminiscent of the end of Sondheim's Follies with Ben's "Live-Laugh-Love" breakdown mixed with Dot's song "We Do Not Belong Together" from Sunday in the Park With George. Devastatingly well acted.

Of course, "Being Alive" brought the house down. Stopped the show cold (which is a little strange when
there is just another minute of dialogue, but Raul Espranza deserved it. I half expected the audience to
give him a standing ovation for that song, and not even wait for the bows). After all of the "What do ya get" intro, he slowly walks over to the piano and starts playing an instrument for the first time. Banging each chord with frustration and longing, pausing as if he is really working out the song.

I'm not sure if Company is the perfect show to see in your late 20s/early 30s, or the worst possible show to see in your late 20s/early 30s, but it is definitely one of the two.

And since we were sitting in the front row student rush seats, Barbara Walsh made eye contact with me and smiled multiple times at me during the bows and Equity Fights AIDS curtain speech.

I almost melted into my seat.

Posted by silsby at April 9, 2007 01:35 PM