Bobbi, the protagonist of a gender-reversed revival of Company, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s innovative 1970 musical about marriage, friendship and the chasm between the two, is facing a dreaded 35th natal anniversary while still unattached. How she deals with the challenges presented makes for one of the most exciting evenings in the New York theater season so far.
The idea of swapping the sexes in Company seemed like a crazy one, but Marianne Elliott’s sleek and warm-hearted production somehow works. The new take on a beloved classic was a smash hit in London and was set to open on Broadway just before COVID-19 closed all the theaters. Now finally unleashed, this dazzling and vibrant alternate view of a familiar favorite was well worth the long wait. The original production was one of the first concept musicals, eschewing the traditional easy songs and romantic plot for Sondheim’s complex, intricate score and Furth’s acid-funny, splintered book portraying a bachelor afraid of commitment and five couples offering diverse and ambiguous, sorry-grateful perspectives on marriage.
Interestingly, aside from the gender switches, very little in Furth’s prescient book and Sondheim’s brilliant lyrics have to be updated. Life Magazine has been replaced by Time, and references to answering services have been deleted, but not much else has been changed. By the way, David Cullen’s orchestrations and Joel Fram’s music supervision and direction perfectly set off Sondheim’s magnificently eclectic score.
By making Bobbie into Bobbi and updating the setting to the present, Elliott has found new perspectives on this unblinking view on the good and bad of conjugal unions. The pressure on women to wed is still greater than on men, plus the protagonist’s marriage uncertainty becomes more urgent as her biological clock is speeding ahead. Elliott emphasizes this aspect with ticking clocks and enormous party balloons with the number 35 overwhelming Bobbi.
In another bold creative move, Elliot and set designer Bunny Christie use Alice in Wonderland as inspiration as Bobbi sinks into tunnels, emerges onto terraces, crawls into shrunken apartments and her friends becomes the wacky revelers at a mad marriage tea party. “Tick Tock,” originally a dance solo for Donna McKechnie, becomes a nightmare sequence involving the whole cast, in which Bobbi envisions an endless stream of mundane mornings of monogamy.
Katrina Lenk captures Bobbi’s ambivalence towards the martial state as well as her thirst for finding an amorous connection. Her singing voice is not as strong or supple as could be desired for some of the power notes of “Being Alive,” but she puts across this shattering ballad of longing—as well as the urging Act One closer “Marry Me a Little”—with power and tenderness. Patti LuPone delivers the expected powerhouse rendition of the caustic Joanne and a scorchingly memorable “Ladies Who Lunch.”
Terence Archie is believably confident as her hubby Larry and convincing as the one man who could handle her. Christopher Sieber and Jennifer Simard are riotously contentious as Harry and Sarah, a duo suppressing urges for booze and chocolate while literally wrestling in their living room.
In another of Elliot’s strokes of recasting genius, the frantic, fearful bride Amy is now a gay groom Jamie played with perfect jittery intensity by Matt Doyle. Etai Benson is sympathetic as his steadier soon-to-be husband. Jamie’s comedy number, “Getting Married Today” is brilliantly staged with the couple’s ultra-modern apartment becoming a madhouse with ensemble members popping out of appliances. Christopher Fitzgerald and Nikki Renee Daniels provide giggles as David and Jenny as they experiment with pot. Greg Hildreth and Rashidra Scott do, too, as Peter and Susan who find happiness in divorce and an uncluttered terrace.
Bobby’s original trio of girlfriends become Bobbi’s three suitors and are hilariously embodied by Claybourne Elder as a gorgeous but dim flight attendant, Manu Narayan as a philosophical New Englander, and Bobby Conte as a hippie-ish free spirit who delivers a powerful “Another Hundred People.” The “city of strangers” referred to in that bracing song about the alienated denizens of Gotham is even more apt now with the cast wondering through designer Christie’s neon jungle set, enraptured by their I-phones. Also aided by Neil Austin’s stark, evocative lighting and the enveloping sound design by Ian Dickinson for Autograph, Marianne Elliott has created a bracing, uncompromising Company for the present moment.
