Sondheim's COMPANY Rings In New Year At TheatreZone
By: Beau Higgins Dec. 15, 2011
Company Rings in New Year at TheatreZone
A Bachelor, Five Couples and All Their Tuneful Discontents
Is it better to be married or single?
TheatreZone artistic director Mark Danni rings in the New Year 2012 directing Company, legendary American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s musical masterwork about New York marriages.
In scene after scene, the audience is introduced to "those good and crazy people," lead character Robert's married friends, as he weighs the pros and cons of married life. Robert’s final realization is that to be emotionally committed to someone else is very difficult, but to be alone is impossible. As an adult, he doesn't need to be taken care of, but needs to care. In the end, he realizes that two is difficult, but one is impossible and that being alone is “alone, not alive."
“Company is the first of a series of seven collaborations between Sondheim and noted director/producer Harold Prince,” says Danni. “Together they built a reputation for works that challenged audiences and redefined what a Broadway musical could be; in fact, their original production of Company was nominated for a record-setting 14 Tony Awards and won six including Best Musical.
Originally set in the 70s and entitled Threes, the plot revolves around Robert,a native New Yorker bachelor unable to commit fully to a steady relationship, let alone marriage, five married couples (one couple about to get married and one getting divorced) who are his best friends, and his three girlfriends April (the stewardess), Kathy (the girl who's going to marry someone else), and Marta (the “peculiar” one).
“Company was a revolutionary musical, substituting relationships for plot. Sondheim named the lead character “Robert” so he could be referred to differently by each of his friends as Bobby, Robbie, etc,” explains Danni. “Robert’s emotional development is traced in music rather than text,” he adds. “In the steady emotional bombardment of daily life, intimacy - in simple friendship, as in marriage - is difficult,” he continues. “Despite the difficulty. It's worth the effort."
The score was written almost perpendicularly to the collection of George Furth plays on which it was based, with characters reflecting on scenes they are not in, or stepping outside of the situation to comment on themselves, on love, on marriage, on commitment. The marriages in each scene are deliberately distorted as viewed through Robert’s eyes. He chooses to see his married friends at their worst moments while secretly coveting his married friends’wives for they are safely unattainable.
Furth and Sondheim saw desperation in both the single and the married state: solitary confinement vs. having someone, the same one, to share your cell in a life sentence where the only parole is divorce. The context of the show was mod Manhattan in the 1970s, utterly unromantic, and a city of strangers.
“Unlike most book musicals, which follow a clearly delineated plot, Company is a musical composed of short vignettes, presented in no particular chronological order, linked by a celebration for Robert’s birthday,” explains director Danni. “The clashing sounds and pulsing rhythms of New York City underscore this landmark “concept” show, considered by many to have inaugurated the modern era of musical theatre. Nothing like previous musical comedy heroes, Robert Is utterly ambivalent about love and completely averse to commitment,” he adds.
While Robert feels obliged to play the "marriage game," the accepted mode of behavior for a contemporary man, he sees only the empty rituals and fails to understand any of the human warmth that must underline the gesture. Robert Is terrified of commitment and equally terrified of being alone. He analyzes the marriages of his friends; desperate to learn whether or not the advantages of marriage outweigh the disappointments.
Sponsored by WAVV 101.1 FM, Company opens January 5, 2012 for 10 performances until January 15, 2012. Tickets on sale now.
About TheatreZone
In 2005, non-profit TheatreZone was born with the intent to bring live professional theatre to Southwest Florida in an intimate setting. Co-founders, Artistic Director Mark Danni, and his wife, actress/choreographer Karen Molnar, shared a vision and a passion to employ professional Equity actors and produce innovative productions of classic “lost treasures of Broadway.”
Operating under the guidelines of the Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), TheatreZone is in residence and performs in the charming 250-seat G&L Theatre, housed on the magnificent campus of The Community School of Naples, one block north of Pine Ridge Road, at 13275 Livingston Road.
TheatreZone Season 7 continues with Little Women, starring Tony-award winning actress Donna McKechnie (March 8-18, 2012) and concludes with The Boyfriend (May 3-13, 2012). Individual seats cost $43 - $48 plus a $2 per ticket fee. Group (more than 10) rates are available.
For more information or to purchase tickets, call TheaterZone at 1-888-ZONE-FLA ,1-888-966-3352, or purchase tickets online at: www.theatrezone-florida.com. Or visit the G&L Theatre Box Office on Wednesdays from 10:30 am until 12:30 p.m.
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