Wed. October 13, 2010
By John Olson
In spite of all the Sondheim that's been performed around Chicago over the past ten years, it's been a while since we've had a professional production of Company. If I recall correctly, the last one was Porchlight's 2003 production performed in the same space as this production by Griffin Theatre Company and I think we've had mountings of all the other Sondheim musicals (except for Saturday Night) in the interim. It's about time, then, for Chicago audiences to get another look at the piece. Griffin (no relation to the Chicago director Gary Griffin) doesn't do a lot of musicals—this is just this third in their 21-year history and in a way that makes them a perfect troupe to tackle Sondheim's reflection on marriage.
So many companies seem to approach Company by racing through the book scenes in order to get to the songs, and Company arguably has Sondheim's most entertaining and accessible score. There are no less than seven killer comedy numbers, the high-energy title song, the social commentary of the pulsing "Another Hundred People" and the simmering to boiling "The Ladies Who Lunch," and four ballads that capture the ambivalence of the male characters toward the institution of marriage. Griffin has assembled a cast of local non-Equity musical theater performers who deliver the songs in performances that range from solid to knockouts. What distinguishes this production, though, is director Jonathan Berry's willingness to let his cast take their time with the scenes by the late George Furth and give them their due as comedy/drama.
Furth's script is, in many places, tricky to play. His main characters—five married couples of upper middle-class New Yorkers and the 35-year-old single man who is the best friend of all of them—are by and large people who work hard at keeping up appearances and are loath to show their real feelings. Most of the dialogue is surface-level politeness and can sound awkward if the actors try to give it any more weight than that. Berry realizes that and has his cast toss the lines off in a matter of fact manner.
Since the words don't usually reveal much of the characters' motivations, the actors are challenged to explore the subtexts beneath the dialogue to show the thoughts their characters resist expressing. The piece's central figure, the bachelor Robert, is tightly wound and guarded in his responses to his friends who tell him he ought to be married. As interpreted here by Benjamin Sprunger, Robert is polite and upbeat when with the couples: the perfect guest, flattering but never challenging them and giving short, evasive answers whenever they ask about his personal life. Sprunger's Bobby is charming with his friends, but shows his loneliness and pain in Bobby's musical soliloquies. His voice is a little thin for those ballads, but he does better with the faster-paced and comedy numbers.
One of the most vexing scenes to pull off is the one in which Bobby gets his friends David and Jenny to smoke pot with him. The couple gets high and seem to enjoy it, but as the effect of the drug wears off, David nudges wife Jenny back into the role in which he sees her: her familiar place as a "square" housewife. Even though he tells her it would be okay for her to have another joint, you and Jenny know it's not what he wants. Paul Fagen as David has a nice-guy façade that briefly slips into control freak mode while Nikki Klix as Jenny remains upbeat and happy even as the direction of the evening with Bobby takes a darker turn after the comic moments of the drug-induced high have passed. Fagen and Klix don't entirely unlock the secrets of the real thoughts of this opaque couple, but they get the general idea across.
Among the girlfriends, Dana Tretta delivers a sensational reading of "Another Hundred People" and nails the eccentricities of the countercultural Marta. Samantha Dubina is sweetly dumb as the stewardess April, and Elizabeth Lanza is quietly touching as the girl who might actually have married Robert. The three do a nice trio with the Andrews Sisters-influenced "You Could Drive a Person Crazy."
The music direction by Allison Kane (a different person from the Allison Cain who plays Joanne) provides strong singing from the company, with the exception of one chord, repeated three times in the show where the full company sings "Bobby" and somebody or two is clearly singing a wrong note. Also, those who know the score from recordings will miss the sound of a fuller orchestra. The trumpet parts are sorely missed. The miking sounded tinny in the first act, but this seemed to be resolved by the second act.
Phone technology doesn't change the basic theme of the piece, though. Certainly, whatever the era, marriage is difficult. This exploration of the tradeoffs between marriage and uncommitted single life should always remain relevant and it's good to see it back on a Chicago stage in such a smart production. Sondheim fans may want to make a day of it and also see Porchlight's Sunday in the Park with George (which closes October 31), as the two are playing literally side by side at Stage 773.
Company will be performed through November 14, 2010, at Stage 773 (Formerly Theatre Building Chicago) at 1225 W. Belmont. For tickets, call 773-327-5252 or visit www.ticketmaster.com.
Photo of Benjamin Sprunger, provided by Griffin Theatre Company
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