There’s good news and bad news at Palm Beach Dramaworks.
The good news is a confident, polished concert of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, now playing through Sunday. The bad news? After this very satisfying evening and the previous, even better semi-staged Man of La Mancha, we may never see a fully produced musical at this West Palm Beach playhouse again.
Company was not even on the schedule when Dramaworks first announced its summer concert slate. But it was stymied in its effort to stage Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel over the licenser’s unreasonable insistence on a 16-piece orchestra. Fortunately, director Clive Cholerton’s default position is to reach for a Sondheim show.
So he opted for Company, which holds a special place in Sondheim’s career. It arrived on Broadway in 1970, the first collaboration between the great lyricist-composer and director Harold Prince, the team that would dominate the commercial theater that decade. It was also the first of a new breed of shows, a so-called “concept musical,” which revolves around theme rather than plot, with a score that comments on the central conceit rather than moving the story forward.
Sondheim had already provided lyrics for West Side Story, Gypsy and Do I Hear a Waltz?, as well as writing the entire score for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the short-lived Anyone Can Whistle. His talent and his interest in pushing the bounds of the musical theater were already apparent, and they both came to fruition with Company, an unconventional, rule-breaking show that examines marriage and committed relationships with an emotional complexity and ambivalence previously unseen in a musical.
The main character, Bobby, is a footloose single guy turning 35, at a time when that was considered approaching middle age. Sure, he has three simultaneous girlfriends, but his married friends think he should narrow the field and settle down. As his birthday party approaches, he thinks back on times he has spent with these couples, observing their “sorry/grateful” ways of life and considering a headlong dive into the pool of matrimony.
The show’s source material is a series of short character sketches by playwright George Furth, whose book for Company is several cuts below Sondheim’s score in insights and originality. Even when the musical was brand-new, the vignettes on karate combat and smoking pot seemed dull and dated.
But the score is a marvel of versatility and wit, a cohesive cycle of songs that share a pulsing, urban, urbane sound. Think of Another Hundred People, a driving tribute to New York, the “city of strangers” that we love and love to hate. Or the title song, a choral number of such complexity that the Dramaworks cast surely faced a great challenge in order to learn it in the limited rehearsal time.
Luckily, Cholerton has a company of pros, including veterans of his previous concerts — Wayne LeGette, Nick Duckart, Leah Sessa and Laura Hodos — and a Broadway ringer (Quinn VanAntwerp of Jersey Boys) as Bobby. Also assets are two newcomers to Dramaworks, Alexandra Hale as panicky bride Amy and Natalia Coego as offbeat gypsy Marta.
Unfortunately, Cholerton felt the need to eliminate some characters, for budgetary reasons, I suppose. As a result, the married couples have been consolidated, their dialogue reassigned and the roles homogenized. Worse, the deletion of some characters meant that — here’s the blasphemous part — some of Sondheim’s lyrics have been fiddled with.
Still, on balance, this is Company well worth keeping. It does not have a 16-piece orchestra either, but it does have musical director Paul J. Reekie on piano, so the score sounds fine. A fully staged production would be preferable, but with a show like Company, its many pleasures come through well enough in concert.
COMPANY in concert, Palm Beach Dramaworks, 201 Clematis St., West Palm Beach. Through Sunday, Aug. 18. Tickets: $35. Call: (561) 514-4042.