– By Cate Marquis –
Having company over for an evening makes for a good time. Seeing “Company” at the Fox makes for a good-time evening of laughs and songs by Stephen Sondheim. This Broadway revival of what is probably Sondheim’s funniest play won Five Tonys including Best Musical Revival. The musical comedy focuses on a singleton whose friends are all married or engaged, and want their friend to join in. In the original version, the single friend is a man but the revival switches the part to a woman, one who now hears that biological clock ticking at her 35th birthday. Sondheim’s look at marriage and relationships leans into the humor in friendship, love and living life itself.
For a gay man who never married, Stephen Sondheim wrote a lot of songs about marriage and relationships, and those are the focus of this comedy. In the original version, all the couples were straight but Sondheim’s examination of relationships is focused on the people in them rather than what gender they were, which helps gives the show a timelessness. In the revival version of this musical, one of the couples is updated to a gay one, a pair of men in a long-term relationship but now engaged to be married.
New Yorker Bobbie (Britney Coleman) has just turned 35 and her friends throw her a surprise party. Her friends mean well, and Bobbie good naturally goes along with it but inside she is more conflicted about the birthday, which has sparked her to reconsider her life. While her friends have paired up, all either married or engaged, Bobbie has concentrated on her career, dating but not committing, and putting off all that settling down stuff for the future. Sure, she is very settled in New York City, which she loves,her career is going well, and with her large circle of friends and plenty of company, she isn’t lonely or bored. She dates but she just hasn’t found the right person to share it with. Turning 35, makes Bobbie decide that now she is ready to find that life partner.
Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade. Courtesy of the Fabulous Fox Theater.
There aren’t a lot of famous songs in this musical but there are some tuneful ones, and the humorous lyrics really sparkle. The show opens with the ensemble – sans Bobbie – preparing for the surprise party, and talking about how they want to fix things for their beloved friend, as they sing the “Overture,” then joined by Bobbie for “Company” about having guests over and companionship generally. The topic introduced in the first act, the friends wanting their beloved friend to join them in couple-hood, continues throughout as Bobbie herself grapples with the idea she had put off until her 35th birthday.
A huge “35” birthday balloon dominates the party and remains to remind her of the birthday. There is a cake with too many candles, which she can’t blow out. Will she get her secret wish? Opinions are divided among her friends, and Bobbie says she didn’t wish for anything anyway. While it is not exactly a wish, Bobbie is thinking about a change.
But the couples don’t exactly make the case for the joys of marriage. There is dry humor in the couple’s songs about marriage, like the sarcastic, satiric “The Little Things You Do Together,” focused on conflict as much as companionship. After the party, Bobbie asks her friends about marriage, specifically if there are regrets about marrying, and we get a couple of songs on that. While most of this comedy musical adapts seamlessly to the change of the gender of the main character, this one moment where that change shows, as it is the guys who respond, singing “Sorry, Grateful,” thoughtfully exploring mixed feelings about making a commitment to one person Not exactly making their case, but then the couples follow up with “Have I Got A Guy For You.”
Bobbie’s romantic history gets showcased with a hilarious number, “You Could Drive A Person Crazy,” featuring three recent boyfriends, beautiful but dim flight attendant Andy (Jacob Dickey), bright accomplished Massachusetts-transplant Theo (David Socolar), and risk-taking native New Yorker PJ (Tyler Hardwick), one of the show’s big highlights. They are all fun but represent Bobbie’s problematic dating choices. In the original musical, this number was three girlfriends doing a 1940s style Andrew Sisters act as they talked about their relationship with Bobbie. In this version, the guys keep just a hint of that ’40s vibe but make it more tongue-in-cheek, adding a little patter between the guys about their mutual love interest. This song is the closest to a big production number in the show, with the others mostly more pared down.
The couples’ well-meant meddling is not entirely unwelcome as Bobbie is thinking about finding a life partner now, and she sings about the possibility of love in “Someone Is Waiting.” PJ’s song “Another Hundred People,” about the continual influx of people crowding into NYC underlines there are plenty of people to meet. Act One closes with Bobbie’s song of longing, “Marry Me A Little,” expressing mixed feelings about taking that step.
The show is staged in a way that makes us feel a bit boxed in by putting the actors in a lighted square frame for most scenes, reflecting Bobbie’s feelings of being under pressure. The live orchestra adds to that with a number titled “Tick Tock.” Then there is that looming giant balloon reading “35,” constantly in her apartment and the play’s repeated revisits to the surprise party. It feels rather claustrophobic and too much by the shows end, with Bobbie taking steps at the end.
Act II opens with a song with a familiar title for Sondheim fans, “Side By Side By Side,” after the recapping “Entr’acte,” with the whole company. The couples all invite Bobbie over for dinner, “just the three of us,” which lets Bobbie take a close look at her friends’ relationships, which Sondheim mines well for humor. The couples – Harry (James Earl Jones II) and Sarah (Kathryn Allison), Peter (Javier Ignacio) and Susan (Marina Kondo), David (Jed Resnick) and Jenny (Emma Stratton), even the gay couple Jamie (Matt Rodin) and Paul (Jhardon DiShon Milton), now planning to marry after a long-term relationship, all have their unseen problems.
A voice of both sarcastic commentary and experience is brought by Bobbie’s much-married, funny, glamorous older friend Joanne (Judy McLane), currently married to lively, fun-loving Larry (Derrick Davis), who gets showcased in the pointed, hilarious “The Ladies Who Lunch.” Each of the boyfriends get a closer look in scenes in Act II, including Andy’s song “Barcelona.”
The perpetual birthday party and the looming giant balloon reminding her of that number 35 gets a final outing in Bobbie’s closing number “Being Alive,” the shows finale to sum up where the main character is at the end of all this life examination.
“Company” is on stage at the Fabulous Fox through March 10.
© Cate Marquis
