Text size:

Complicated 'Company' comes to B'way

By Matt Windman

November 29, 2006

Raul Esparza (center) leads Stephen Sondheim's COMPANY, a musical about love, marriage and commitment. (Newsday/Ari Mintz)

Arguably, this is the best production of 'Company' ever on Broadway. In other ways, it is the most stale and unsatisfying. And in one light, Raul Esparza is the most convincing actor to ever play Bobby. In another, he's the most depressing. Just like Bobby, the 35-year-old who yearns for emotional connection while fearing it, this 'Company' is ambiguous and complicated.

John Doyle, in a quick follow-up to his acclaimed minimalist revival of Stephen Sondheim¹s 'Sweeney Todd,' has given 'Company' the same scaled-down treatment. Instead of the lush, sweeping sound found in the musical¹s original 1970s orchestrations, we are instead treated to a chamber orchestra-intimacy that is often no less thrilling.

Unlike Doyle¹s 'Sweeney Todd,' which awkwardly attempted to cram an epic melodrama onto a shoebox stage, his staging of 'Company' is actually the most convincing in its simplicity, which shuns the elevators and skyscraper steel found in earlier productions. By making the entire cast watch Bobby from behind like a jury as he endures numerous episodes with his married friends, Doyle reinforces the idea that 'Company' takes place inside Bobby¹s mind.

Raul Esparza gives a truly authentic performance as Bobby -- one that emphasizes the character¹s loneliness, jaded apathy and frustration. Esparza's rendition of 'Being Alive' at the musical¹s end is purely cathartic, thanks to Bobby's shattering emotions and Doyle¹s incredible choreography, which begins the song with Bobby improvising on the piano, slowly swelling into a full orchestral accompaniment from the entire cast.

Problematic, however, are the book scenes, semi-farcical interactions between Bobby and the married couples as they confront the topics of drugs, sex, homosexuality and New York life. Not only has the content become extremely dated, the scenes move far too slowly and quickly get tiresome.

It seems as though Doyle could effectively stage actor-musician versions of all the Sondheim musicals from 'Anyone Can Whistle' to 'Assassins.' Here, Doyle has proven again that even musical theater can be as malleable as Shakespeare.

'Company¹ At Barrymore Theatre, open run. Mon-Sat 8pm; Wed, Sat 2pm; $36.25-$111.25. 243 W 47th St, 212-239-6200