Holiday Auto-Post: A Show I'm Looking Forward to in 2020

Hey there!  Here's your last auto-post for the holiday season - I swear, I will try to blog more regularly in 2020.  I'm just sharing this review since another revival is coming up soon - I'm looking forward to it, because I feel as if Katrina Lenk can do no wrong, and well, it has a different director than the one mentioned below (you may laugh at some of my critiques, because I've made them many times since), but here are thoughts from the first time I saw Company...

1/10/2007:  Saw Company last night.  It’s actually my second trip to this production; I saw it with a co-worker before the holidays.  It’s my first full production of Company (I've seen the documentary on the recording of the original cast album many times), and I have to say I didn’t love it as much as I wanted to.

The first time I saw it, I was so caught up in the excitement of seeing the show for the first time and seeing my boyfriend front and center, I don’t think I was really seeing the show.  I was disappointed with the book scenes and I didn’t really connect at all.  I chalked it up to all the outside factors and figured I would like the show better the second time.  After all, the first time I saw Assassins, Sweeney Todd, and Pacific Overtures, I was disappointed.  On subsequent viewings, I could finally relax and just watch the show in front of me.  You know how it is when you build something up for so many years...

I did enjoy the show more last night.  I connected a couple of times and saw lots of stuff I missed the first time (it did help that our seats last night were way better than the seats I had before).  But I still didn’t love the production.  I don’t think all of the actors are up to the standard Raul sets (I realize that not many are), and some of the staging was just darned distracting.  Intellectually, I understand the reason for the parading around the stage of all those crazy married friends, but at times, I wanted everyone to STAND STILL AND SING!  This show has some of the most delicious lyrics ever, and watching the to-and-fro distracted me from the lyrics some of the time.  

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

The singing was all first-rate and the choral stuff was outstanding.  I think, like with the most recent production of Sweeney Todd, the arranger is the star.  Some of the flourishes of the different instruments during certain lyrics were genius.  And the distinction between Bobby, his married friends, and his outside girlfriends, was great.  Of course, Raul is beyond fabulous.  I couldn’t breathe during his final moments of ‘Being Alive.’   His ‘Marry Me a Little’ is pretty darned terrific, too.  I felt his conflict, way more than I felt anything else, even the loneliness and separateness I think we’re supposed to feel.  But other actors just seemed lacking to me.  

I wish I had loved it as much as many of my friends did.  Maybe I need to see it again?  God knows I wouldn’t mind hearing the singing again.  Were my expectations too high?  I just don’t know.  But, for me, even though I think I completely understand what was trying to be said with the actor/musician concept, it just didn’t work for me as well as it did in Sweeney Todd.  And I know it didn’t work for many people in Sweeney!  This is why I love theater!  It’s not math!  There can be different answers/opinions!  Two things can be true at the same time!  And, come to think of it, who exemplifies that best?  Mr. Stephen Sondheim, that's who!  Whee!  (forgive all the exclamation points, please.)