Company at the Peace Center
Live theater rarely offers experiences more hyper-meta than what occurred at the Peace Center on Jan. 23.
Opening night of Company — a musical about central character Bobbie turning 35 — just so happened to coincide with the 35th birthday of Britney Coleman, the actor playing Bobbie. For those with advance knowledge of the overlap, it was tough not to see an extra glow around the lead’s mesmerizing performance. But while her co-stars and the talented crew and pit orchestra were likewise at their best, it was in the service of material unable to consistently match their efforts.
Overly devoted to Stephen Sondheim’s music and lyrics and George Furth’s book, director Marianne Elliott’s acclaimed gender-swapped production of the Tony-winning 1970 musical oscillates between greatness and walk-out frustration with nearly every scene. Almost without fail, each superb song is followed by an absolute dud, though the issue is exaggerated by dialogue between numbers that often outstays its welcome and grows stale.
Two acts and 2.5 hours proves too much for frequently repetitive insights into the romantic relationships at hand, especially when Company rarely offers a sense of what Bobbie herself truly wants, instead leaving her to mostly react to her well-meaning but judgmental friends’ rigid standards.
The result is a long, occasionally tedious sit, but one peppered with stunning highs. The sets by Bunny Christie glide in and out of sight with a magical grace, convincingly bringing various New York City apartments, balconies, stoops, and public places to life. And the musicians under the direction of Charlie Alterman steadily serve up sonic delights — and are sorely missed when the non-musical stretches drag on and on.
However, when the orchestra and cast get to collaborate on a quality composition, one can see why so many theatergoers hold Company in such high regard. While the charm doesn’t last, the show first hits its stride with the playful “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” — joyfully sung by Scarlett Johansson, Julie Hagerty, and Merritt Wever in Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story — and a few numbers later goes full Busta Rhymes, spotlighting the rap-like verbal dexterity of Matt Rodin as nervous groom-to-be Jamie in “Getting Married Today.”
The high/low pattern is so pronounced that the decent amount of newly-empty seats after intermission were understandable. But those who jetted missed out on some of the show’s true highlights.
Of particular notes is the ballet-like, lyric-free “Tick Tock,” in which a handful of Bobbie doppelgängers enact what the next few years might be like with dim but attractive flight attendant Andy (Jacob Dickey). The planning and seamless execution of so many moving parts deserves a standing ovation, but no such opportunity is built in and things soon get back to their see-saw ways.
Try as Judy McLane might, penultimate number “The Ladies Who Lunch” is by far the show’s worst song and the subsequent interminable exchange between her multiple-divorcée Joanne and Bobbie makes one yearn for the end. That it’s followed up with arguably Company’s best tune, “Being Alive” — which Adam Driver memorably sung at the end of (what else?) Marriage Story — offers some consolation while also serving as an ideal case study of the show’s yo-yo extremes.
One scene remains following that potential finale and concludes in such deflating fashion that the night’s attendees weren’t sure how to react, resulting in a mass exodus and, when the delayed curtain call at last commenced, stirred up muted applause for an ensemble deserving of a far more raucous response. After The Wiz’s comparably anticlimactic end and (justifiably) diluted audience appreciation in November, here’s hoping the Peace Center’s next offering, the Bob Dylan jukebox musical Girl From the North Country, doesn’t make the same mistake in two weeks.
Company runs through Jan. 28 at the Peace Center. For details and tickets, visit peacecenter.org.
(Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade)
