Jack Firneno, the Wire
“Do you know why New York is the greatest city in the world?” asks a woman in Company. “It’s the city of ‘Me’s.’ ”
That’s capital-M “Me”: the people who are someone, or at least think they are. It makes sense, then, that the musical, which debuted in 1970, takes place there.
Company is the emotional journey of a man is his early 30s as he realizes he’s finally mature enough to want to get married. With striking non-linear storytelling from a book by George Furth and a then-contemporary score by Stephen Sondheim, the Tony Award-winning musical was considered groundbreaking in its time.
On stage at the Bucks County Playhouse this month, 45 years after its debut, however, Company seems something of a Me-generation relic. At least, it’s the obvious predecessor to television shows like How I Met Your Mother — notable, then, that Neil Patrick Harris even played the lead in a staged reading with the New York Philharmonic in 2011.
Four decades in, some elements are predictable, and maybe a little tired. There’s the passive-aggressive marital bickering, for instance, or the rich-people-in-a-loveless-marriage scenario that have been sent up in countless books and movies. Even the scene where two parents get stoned among their child’s toys seems like the template for a few scenes in the aforementioned sitcom.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t still be fun, and at the Playhouse it is. Director Hunter Foster, along with the cast and crew, manage to cram a lot of electricity and kinetic energy into the production.
Company gets plenty of use out of the Playhouse’s newly restored stage turntable, which was out of commission for decades. Used tentatively in National Pastime, Foster’s last musical here, it now moves the scenery and cast fast and frequently.
Characters step on and off as it moves to simulate a subway at one point, and the furniture rotates quickly around the stage during fluid setting changes, sometimes barely stopping.
To keep things moving, instead of a backdrop curtain, we get those thick, translucent plastic slabs you’d see on a conveyor belt, exposing the cinderblock and stairway backstage.
Likewise, scenic designer Jason Sherwood’s minimalist staging is composed almost entirely of an archway and large-framed windows, the kind that announce “1970s New York” as much as seeing Woody Allen in bell bottoms. They descend quickly from above the stage in various configurations to signify different settings.
In this evocative, if stark, environment, the story unfolds in a series of vignettes. Justin Guarini — yes, from American Idol; yes he went to school around here; yes he cut his hair — as Robert comes off like a mellow Vince Vaughn. Often slouching or looking a little out of his element, he plays his part like a bystander in a play that revolves around him.
There’s an especially striking moment in the first act where he watches a song from the opposite side of the stage. Backlit, with his profile to the audience, and slumped with a goofy smile, he legitimately looks as if he’s witnessing the interaction for the first time, and is genuinely touched by it.
In fact, it’s hard not to be affected by those moments. The actors’ voices, especially when they’re not singing, are their own characters in an already stylized production.
Candy Buckley’s older and upper-class, world-weary and slightly sloshed accent is spot-on. Chelsea Emma Franko has a chime to her voice as a starry-eyed newcomer to the city that rings out to the back of the theater.
Franko is also saddled with the verbal acrobatics of the song “Another Hundred People.” It alternates frenetic, overstuffed verses with wide-open choruses; she enunciates perfectly and soars beautifully.
Elsewhere, Jennifer Cody brings a youthful, sometimes vicious, spunk to her lines, contrasted nicely against John’s tired tone and lanky frame. Their difference in size — the short Cody against the tall Bolton — is played for maximum laughs in a tightly choreographed sequence that literally turns Cody upside down.
And, in the middle of it all is Guarini. He’s the least assuming of all the players, but that’s clearly by choice. He plays wide-eyed and fawning as well as he does scheming and frustrated. His songs are emotional where most of the others are funny or quirky, and he hits his mark beautifully on the climactic “Being Alive.”
By the time that showstopper comes around, however, the point is almost moot.
The second act runs shorter than the first, with fewer songs and less dialogue. But it’s also more disparate with more emphasis on emotion than development. It’s possible that, by the time Guarini’s voice fills the room on “Being Alive,” an audience member has already figured it all out and is almost tired of waiting for him to catch up.
But, individual mileage on that point will vary depending on how partial that audience member is to musicals, or perhaps how many seasons of a television show about young people searching for love in the big city — or singing contests — he or she can enjoy.
“Company” is playing at the Bucks County Playhouse, 70 South Main St. in New Hope, through June 21. For information or to order tickets, call 215.862.2121 or visit www.bcptheater.org.
