Sick Product of a Sick System

Admirable film.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I had a hard time deciding whether to give this mess one star or two, then decided, thanks for the holiday season, to bump it up... but no higher.Poor Stephen Sondheim. This much ballyhooed revival consists of the cast, each playing an instrument (except, of course, for Robert! -- think Concept, people!), as they also sing and dance through one of Sondheim's most brilliant scores. The original production had the added benefit of Jonathan Tunick's orchestrations, while this has the thinness of sound that suggests a dress rehearsal with a proxy orchestra cobbled together while we wait for the real thing to get changed and appear in the pit.It is, in a word, dreadful. The opening number is staged not unlike a marching band encircling the woefully miscast actor playing Bobby. While they stumble (in some cases, literally) through the music, he does his level best to sing. Were this a UFC battle, he would have bludgeoned the score to a pulpy mass; as it is, he just sings, and we all cringe in response.Were that not bad enough, we have to suffer through John Doyle's remarkably inept staging, in which everyone circles and circles and circles around the centre column that makes up most of the "set", if one can call it that. The design is remarkably unimaginative, especially when seen in comparison to Boris Aaronson's original design, and the pitch black backdrop (or at least it looked that way under the highly focused lighting) simply swallows up the nearly all-black costumes, reducing everyone to disembodied hands and heads holding their instruments as they march ever more in circles around and around and around.The actor (and I use the term loosely here) playing Bobby does so on a single emotional note... until, as one might expect, the Big Emotional Outburst at the End, in which he *finally* sits at the damn piano and starts to play. I suppose this is the Moment Doyle had planned for all evening, but it comes off flat and anti-climactic, with Bobby coming close to a 40s femme fatale crying jag as he "breaks through the emotional wall separating him from the rest of the company" (Get it now?). It's thoroughly unbelievable.That this won Best Revival simply suggests that it was a lousy year for revivals. That this got any kind of critical acclaim suggests that it was a lousy year for critics in desperate need of *something* they could enjoy, no matter how awful it might be. That this is available on DVD is an insult and a sop to the many Sondheim fans who can never see Harold Prince's original production. This, by comparison, is an embarrassment.

I saw this production on Broadway in 2006 and was underwhelmed despite loving Raul Esparza in the lead and really connecting with the original material (via the cast album and previous stagings). I was a little disappointed then when I heard that this production was going to be filmed/taped as I didn't want this to be the "Company" of record. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the television version. Kudos to Lonny Price (whose stage work I haven't always admired) for bringing clarity to the action as well as to the relationships among the characters in his camera direction (the stage direction is by John Doyle). What was unintelligible on stage is now clear thanks to the use of close-ups and montage. This will never be my favorite Company (not nearly "New York" enough -- and I still maintain that the show works best set in its original time frame -- 1970), but what disappointed on stage has become a very entertaining and interesting production of a great "problem" musical.

Second rate cast. Third rate production. Fourth rate concept.I have the highest praise for "Company" as a musical. Smart dialog. Witty songs. The idea of creating a musical based not on a story (it doesn't have one), but on the concept of interpersonal relationships was ground breaking. This is one of Stephen Sondheim's best! In this production the cast plays all the musical instruments. I guess that saved on paying for an orchestra. What we end up with is a group of performers who must be actor/singer/musician. That is asking a lot. And not one person in the cast is good at all three. We end up with the actors delivering lines while holding on to their musical instruments. To be true to the musical they would also have to dance. The director has saved them from that be removing all the dancing. "Tic-Toc" is gone and "Side-by-side-by-side" looses its punch.The star/director also includes a solo for himself at the end of act one that did not make it to Broadway and for good reason. It's a nice song, but it diminishes the impact of Robert's singing "Being Alive" at the end of act two."Company" deserves better treatment than this production. Just watch the DVD of the making of the Original Broadway Cast album and you will see the potential. It is great that "Company" is finally out on DVD. It is sad that this is the production they give us.

Marry me a little...Love me just enough...Cry but not too often...Play but not too rough...Keep a tender distance...So we'll both be free...That's the way it ought to be....Only Stephen Sondheim could come up with such sophisticated couplets to a love song as disquieting as the beautiful "Marry Me a Little". I was very fortunate to have seen the enthralling 2006 production at the Ethel Barrymore Theater last season, and I'm thrilled it has been captured for posterity on DVD as part of PBS's "Great Performances" series. There is something supremely ironic about how a 37-year old show, already revived twice, can feel fresher than most Broadway musicals written today. However, when the music reflects Sondheim at his most accomplished with performers so adept, it becomes a moot point, even though several of the songs here have been inescapable at karaoke bars for years from the lips of overly zealous musical theater aficionados.Staged like a minimalist cabaret act, John Doyle's joyous revival uses the same technique he used in his 2005 production of Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd", specifically he has the actors play their own musical instruments, a daring move which actually helps underline the characters' feelings. The story is blessedly simple as it revolves around perennial bachelor Bobby, as he turns 35 and observes his circle of upscale Manhattanite friends, five married couples at different stages in various vignettes that make him reconsider what he wants out of life. Juggling three girlfriends, Bobby is a likable but elliptical figure with commitment issues, and the story really follows his journey toward self-acceptance. There is an element of contrivance to the structure, but what I thought would be a severely dated libretto by George Furth continues to resonate with wit and insight. For a canon as legendary and often erratic as his, Sondheim's sophisticated music and lyrics never seemed as accessible and hummable as they do here. So much of the show rides on the crucial casting of Bobby, and Raúl Esparza is terrifically bold and poignant in managing the precarious balance between yearning romantic and cynical hedonist. With a beautifully expressive singing voice coupled with a common-guy demeanor, he captures the character's arc with an escalating emotional intensity from the measured romanticism of "Someone Is Waiting" to the tender tentativeness of "Marry Me a Little" (with the beautiful, Sondheim-trademarked rolling piano) to the bursting climactic catharsis of "Being Alive".The rest of the cast accomplish wonderful moments that already come with high expectations - Heather Laws' dexterously motors her way through "Getting Married Today" with her character's nerve-wracking intensity intact; Elizabeth Stanley brings a likable warmth to the dim-bulb flight attendant April as she duets sweetly with Esparza on the comically post-coital "Barcelona"; Angel Desai's saucy turn as hip Marta on "Another Hundred People"; the poignant "Sorry-Grateful" performed by the comparatively less spotlighted male ensemble; and of course, there are the lacerating observations in "The Ladies Who Lunch", handled with fierce worldliness by Barbara Walsh as Joanne. In the intimidating shadow of Elaine Stritch, Walsh lets out repeated primal screams at the end that pierce with wounding acuity.TV director Lonny Price does a fluent job transferring the production to the small screen with minimum fuss. The 2008 DVD contains three terrific extras. First, there is a fifteen-minute interview with an articulate and thoughtful Esparza who discusses his connection with Bobby, the challenge of learning piano, and the alternating joy and pressure of working with Sondheim (for the third time). There is also a nine-minute interview with the erudite Doyle who explains how his unique use of actors as musicians went over with Sondheim. The centerpiece has to be a fascinating, 38-minute interview that Australian TV personality Jonathan Biggins conducted with Sondheim last year in Sydney's Theatre Royal. Sondheim is particularly forthcoming with humorous anecdotes about working with the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Ethel Merman, Barbra Streisand, and his mentor Oscar Hammerstein II during his long, illustrious career. This is a wonderful DVD for any Broadway aficionado and particularly for fans of Sondheim, Esparza and Doyle. I happen to be all three.