Graham Todd as Bobby. Photo by Laine Rogers.
Now more than a half-century old, Company marks a pivotal moment in Stephen Sondheim’s development as a musical theatre composer, shifting from his early, more traditional musicals (for which he had primarily served as lyricist) into the baroque, concept-driven shows for which he’s better known. Telling the story of Bobby, the last unmarried man in a group of New Yorkers, as he celebrates his 35th birthday, the musical explores the difficulty of finding meaningful connection in contemporary society. Though it’s beginning to feel a bit dated, the new production open now at the charming Skokie Theatre will remind theatre-goers why this has remained such a beloved classic.
Any production of Company will only be as successful as its Bobby, and Graham Todd delivers an admirable turn as the musical’s perpetual bachelor. Todd has a fine voice and a guileless, winning stage presence that makes clear why all Bobby’s friends are so captivated by him. He’s got the kind of youthful charm that has sadly faded from most people’s lives by the time they’re 35. His performance isn’t perfect — he’s sometimes a little too broad and can verge on cartoonish — but the choices he makes work more often than not. Todd’s Bobby is boisterous and cheerful, but you sometimes get the sense that his gregariousness is a defense mechanism. Is he actually this happy, or is he trying to convince himself that he is?
Around Todd, the remainder of the cast is generally quite game as well. Sarah Sapperstein and Conner H. Schroeder found some real menace in the battling couple Harry and Sarah, driven to extremes by dieting and alcohol abstention, in a way that motivated the song “Sorry/Grateful” quite masterfully. Credit as well to Fatima Zahara and Aidan Sternberg, both strong as Bobby’s divorcing friends Susan and Peter. The weak point of Company is playwright George Furth’s book, and Zarahra and Sternberg made Furth’s often dated, corny dialogue work quite well. Anna Seibert’s turn as Bobby’s on-and-off girlfriend Marta deserves plaudits for a fine rendition of “Another Hundred People,” a song that has bedeviled actresses in that role for the better part of a century.
If there’s a problem with this show, it derives from what feels like an unfocused directorial vision. Scenic designer Brian Wasserman created a playfully abstract set that evokes a cityscape and offers some flexibility and opportunity for clever staging, but director Steve Scott too often doesn’t make the best use of the space. For instance, “Sorry/Grateful” is staged with all four men crammed tightly into the center of the stage space, seated, despite the mobility of several set pieces and multiple visual levels for action. “Have I Got a Girl for You” is similarly claustrophobic, with the husbands gathered around Bobby and trying to move him upstage as they’re behind him in a semicircle. The moments echo visually, which makes sense for the two songs’ thematic linkage — the husbands are jealous of Bobby but they also pity him — but the choreography is too complex to be precise in such a tight space. A clearer stage picture would likely have evoked the image more clearly.
This type of visual stasis pervades the show. For every song that works well (“You Could Drive a Person Crazy” gives the three girlfriends a lot of fun stuff to do) there’s two that don’t. For instance, Amy (played by Jamie Todd) sings most of “Getting Married Today” downstage in a relatively slow pacing pattern, which undermines the increasingly frantic tempo and lyrics of the song. Both “Marry Me a Little” and “Being Alive” see Bobby parked and barking downstage center with almost no movement. Even when there’s some variation, such as a fun bit where Bobby hides in the house during “Side by Side,” it gets undermined somehow. In “Side by Side,” Bobby goes back to the same spot twice, the redundancy of the blocking sapping its zest. These aren’t fatal flaws, but they do mean the actors have to work twice as hard to make the songs pop because there’s often not much visual storytelling to support their work.
This production is also just a bit too long. The team has opted to keep “Tick Tock,” often cut from revivals because it was originally created as a vehicle for star dancer Donna McKechnie, then married to the original choreographer Michael Bennett. The number doesn’t add that much to the show’s narrative that we don’t already get from “Barcelona.” Its absence here would help move things to the climax faster. Likewise, the ensemble performs a reprise of “Company” during the curtain call that slows the show down at its conclusion and muddles when the audience is supposed to express its approval.
Pruning back this excessive vegetation to let the blossoms flourish more fully would perhaps have made for a show that offered just a bit more bite to the audience. Still, even a Company with flaws is still well worth an audience’s time in the theatre. If there’s a better explanation of the tradeoffs that accompany adult relationships than “Sorry/Grateful” or “Being Alive,” it hasn’t been written yet.
Somewhat Recommended
Company plays at the Skokie Theatre, 7924 Lincoln Avenue, Skokie IL, through March 1 on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and on Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets are available at https://gopher-halibut-ga77.squarespace.com/.