“COMPANY”: Theatre Intime and Princeton University Players are presenting “Company.” Directed by Adam Bathurst and Music Directed by Morgan Taylor, the musical runs through February 28 at the Hamilton Murray Theater. Above: Bobby (Radon Belarmino, center, holding the cake) is the guest of honor at a 35th birthday party given by the ensemble of his love interests and already-married friends. (Photo by Hannah Bonbright)
By Donald H. Sanborn III
Company is a musical that examines marriage. So it is apt that the show brings about a wedding (if only a temporary one) of two Princeton University theater organizations.
Theatre Intime is collaborating with Princeton University Players to present the renowned musical. Company (1970) was a literate, witty book by George Furth. The vibrant, versatile music and intricate, often wry lyrics are by Stephen Sondheim.
The show is adapted from several of Furth’s one-act plays, each of which has three characters: a married couple and one unmarried person. For the musical, the unmarried characters are amalgamated into one protagonist, a bachelor named Bobby.
In creating the musical version, Furth and Sondheim did not attempt to create a linear narrative. Fundamentally the show is a revue-like anthology of vignettes, unified by Bobby’s observations; and Sondheim’s songs, all of which discuss marriage or life in New York City – or metaphorically illustrate a character’s state of mind. As such, Company is one of the first “concept musicals.”
As the commitment-shy Bobby turns 35, he finds himself re-examining his friendships with several married couples, as well as his (apparently on-and-off) relationships with a trio of love interests. He feels stagnant and wonders whether he is missing something by not being married, but he is unnerved by the tension (often erupting into acrimony) that he observes in his friends’ marriages.
In 1971 Furth and Sondheim both won Tony Awards for their work on Company, which also won Best Musical. The show has been revived four times on Broadway. The 2006 revival was directed by John Doyle, who has been a visiting professor at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts. The most recent revival (directed by Marianne Elliott) notably altered the unmarried protagonist into a female character, Bobbie.
The production being presented by Theatre Intime and PUP does not alter the gender of any of the characters, instead reverting to the original version of the show. Adam Bathurst directs, guiding the actors through performances that successfully convey the characters’ arcs.
The show’s origins and concept present a unique challenge to a director and cast. It is important to remember that, while Company can be seen as a world-weary critique of marriage, it also is a coming-of-age story. As a birthday motif makes clear, the story’s protagonist is 35, but he experiences a coming-of-age nonetheless.
In order to keep Bobby from being overshadowed by his friends (many of whom arguably have livelier if idiosyncratic personalities), it is crucial that Bobby’s observations of his friends’ marriages (not to mention some suggestive remarks made to him by at least one of the wives) be understood to affect his emotional development. Fortunately, Bathurst and the cast demonstrate awareness of this.
The capable music direction is by Morgan Taylor, who gets a satisfying blend, both from the ten-piece orchestra — which does justice to the bright, crisp, orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick — and the singers. (Moyu Yamaguchi’s sound design deserves credit for good balance between the voices and the instruments.)
Company opens with a cappella singers ethereally chanting Bobby’s name. Bobby (portrayed by Radon Belarmino) listens to phone messages in which his friends send birthday greetings; then the ensemble moves into the rhythmically pulsing title song. Sondheim’s vast gifts as a songwriter immediately are on display, as is the cast’s energy and enthusiasm.
In one segment of this opening number, the word “love” uses a preposterous number of beats of music; originally this was to accommodate the 1970 choreography. Here, a character knowingly glances at their watch. Amusing as that moment is, a bit more movement might have benefited the sequence.
Sophia Vernon’s choreography is more consistently strong in the second act opener, “Side By Side By Side / What Would We Do Without You?” The sequence is an amusing parody kick-line dance numbers commonly associated with musical theater, complete with Bob Fosse-esque bowler hats.
Both of these songs allow us to realize two things. Bobby’s friends over-rely on him to visit and distract from problems with their marriages (at the expense of working on his own romantic relationships). At the same time, clearly he is becoming a third wheel, an intruder whose interests are less and less shared by his friends, at least some of whom are starting to outgrow him.
Bobby’s married (or engaged) friends include the dieting Sarah (Zoë Nadal) and recovering alcoholic Harry (Miguel Palacios), a couple whose visit with Bobby becomes an impromptu Karate match (with fight choreography by Rowan Johnson); the acerbic Joanne (Kristen Tan) who has been married “three or four times” and her current husband, Larry (Davi Frank); Peter (Rohan Sykora) and his Southern belle wife, Susan (Christie Davis), whose seemingly idyllic marriage may be a facade; Jenny (Mary Avery) and her husband, David (Jonah Stone); and Amy (Rose Campbell), a (very) nervous bride who — theoretically — is about to marry Paul (Sam Coleman).
The trio of Bobby’s girlfriends includes the affable if ditzy flight attendant April (Melanie Garcia); Kathy (Lucia Cowell), who wants to leave the city; and Marta (Khadija Ndiaye) who, conversely, thrives on hectic city life, along with the social and romantic possibilities it offers. Cowell, Garcia, and Ndiaye are memorable in their trio “You Could Drives a Person Crazy,” an Andrews Sisters parody that is one of the score’s very few overt pastiches.
“Sorry-Grateful,” a contemplative trio (for some of the husbands) that aptly encapsulates the show’s candid ambivalence about marriage, is smoothly delivered by Palacios, Stone, and Frank.
“Barcelona” is a duet for Bobby and April that also (more comically) captures ambivalent feelings in a relationship. Belarmino and Garcia have good chemistry, and play off of each other well as they deliver the artfully ridiculous conversation set to a slow waltz.
Ndiaye’s exuberant delivery of the brisk “Another Hundred People,” the show’s ode to New York City, is one of the production’s highlights. So is Campbell’s rendition of the subsequent “Getting Married Today,” a rapid-fire patter song in which an increasingly panicked Amy is joined by a joyous Paul and an angelic but wry chorister (portrayed by Avery as Jenny).
Tan infuses the acerbic Joanne’s two numbers with satisfying contrast, though both still are characterized by bitter sarcasm. “The Little Things You Do Together” is delivered wryly but laced with gentleness, even sweetness—giving the performance room to grow, and allowing the character’s subsequent showpiece, “The Ladies Who Lunch,” to be the outlet in which the character’s world-weary (and, crucially, self-deprecating) bitterness memorably erupts. (Joanne is a smoker, and the production uses real cigarette smoke during the scene to establish the atmosphere.)
Joanne’s increasingly manic outburst directly affects Bobby (as does a brief conversation between the two), leading into Bobby’s climactic solo, “Being Alive.” Belarmino allows his performance to have a clear arc. In the act one closer “Marry Me a Little,” he effectively uses body language in tandem with his voice to show the character’s mixture of loneliness and hesitation, allowing the rendition of “Being Alive to be more impassioned — to be the revelation and catharsis that it needs to be.
Some segments take place in Bobby’s head. Smoke effects aid in establishing these, though the might have been used a bit more sparingly. Al Potter’s lighting also helps demarcate dream sequences and “real time” scenes, and adds vibrancy to the ensemble numbers.
Alexander Picoult’s set suggests the city setting, while being abstract enough to accommodate both multiple homes and the alternation between imagined and real moments. Ashley George’s costumes adequately establish the professional, (upper) middle class status of most of the characters.
Some elements of the script and score feel surprisingly contemporary; others feel more dated. The image of someone being “all alone … by the telephone” is an amusing one in the age of portable phones. More thematically, someone being unmarried in their mid-30s is much less rare than was the case in 1970 (or even in 1995, the year of the show’s first Broadway revival).
What still feels most relevant is the tension between loneliness and fear of commitment. Also apt, particularly in this venue, is the coming-of-age element. As university students, most or all of these performers obviously are a decade (or more) younger than the characters they portray; but equally obviously, they can relate to the need to demarcate their feelings and priorities from those around them, and choose their own lives and relationships.
Ultimately, this marriage between Theatre Intime and Princeton University Players is a successful one.
“Company” will play at the Hamilton Murray Theater in Murray Dodge Hall, Princeton University, through February 28. Content advisory: the program advises that the show contains moderate adult “language, sexual content and themes; depictions of the usage of substances including alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana.” For tickets, show times, and further information, visit theatreintime.org or pup.princeton.edu.