You’ll be in good ‘Company’ if you attend
There’s an old saw about musicals — wouldn’t it be strange to live in a world where conversations are suddenly interrupted by someone breaking out in song? Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Company,” belays that idea by jettisoning the concept of songs being shoehorned into dialogue.
Lacking a traditional plot, “Company” is composed of a series of flashback vignettes ignited by bachelor Bobby and his married friends gathering to celebrate his birthday. Freed from storytelling, the actors focus on the messiness of life, love and marriage.
The Musical Theatre Guild of Butler brings this classic to the William A. Lehnerd Performance Hall in Butler’s Memorial Park on March 24, 25, 26, 31 and April 1.
From the first song, “Bobby,” and continuing throughout, first-time director Jules Leddy and choreographer Aleah Stahlnecker use every inch of the stage to send Bobby down the rabbit hole of his emotional past. Leddy and Aaron Henley’s minimal set design spreads out across three risers to hold the action of a large cast in a small space. Leddy and Ken Smith’s skillful lighting design utilizes spotlights to partition the space into individual flashbacks while Alison Carey’s music direction propels the show’s songs, many of them now Broadway classics, and showcases the actor’s voices and range.
There’s an energy and joy in these performers that draw in the audience. The players genuinely seem to be having a good time. There’s a mix of stage stalwarts like Jeff Carey who plays recovering alcoholic Harry with a strong stage presence even when engaging in a wrestling match with his wife, Sarah, played by Davlin Smith. Newcomer Jaycie Wisor plays April, Bobby’s air steward girlfriend, with an innocent vapidity that borders on bittersweet.
Zach Frye plays Bobby as a man slightly baffled by his life and circumstances with expressive eyes and side glances to the audience. Frye’s all-around talents are revealed as he waltzes the female cast around the stage with a strong voice that moves through a difficult range of notes.
However, the carefree existence that Bobby’s friends think he has is not life as he experiences it.
“Have I Got A Girl For You,” sung by Carey, Ken Smith, Kaleb Purswell, David Halin, and Rik Medic, provides a look at the married men living vicariously through Bobby while their wives react on the risers. This staging wisely moves the focus away from freedom fantasy to highlight the emotional distance between the men and their partners.
If You’re Going
WHAT: The Musical Theatre Guild of Butler’s production of “Company”
WHERE: William A. Lehnerd Performance Hall in Butler Memorial Park
WHEN: March 24, 25, 26, 31 and April 1. Showtimes are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.
TICKETS: Tickets can be purchased at www.mtgbutler.org.
From the opposite viewpoint, “Poor Baby” sung by Shannon Galligan-Stierle, Mackenzie Hindman, Davlin Smith, and Shelly Spataro, provides the female characters’ voices a chance to shine as they provide a Greek chorus of unwanted advice toward Bobby’s choice of romantic conquests.
Those romantic interests, April, Kathy and Marta, played by Wisor, Aleah Stahlnecker and Gretchen Jessup, do strong work in “You Could Drive A Person Crazy,” expressing their frustration at Bobby’s refusal to get on with his life and providing a counterpoint to the male voices.
The second act song, “Ladies Who Lunch,” was made famous by luminaries like Elaine Stritch and Patti LuPone and their world-weary cosmopolitan voices. In the MTG production, Spataro makes the song her own, using it to reveal a cautionary tale for Bobby with the barely concealed rage of a person who time has passed by and made irrelevant.
MTG’s “Company” is filled with frenetic movement. Molly Miller conquers the tongue-twisting “Getting Married Today” with the panicked patter and dry hysteria of a bride having second thoughts while her fiancée, Paul, played by Purswell, provides a nerdy, lovestruck counterpoint.
This pacing is an important part of MTG’s production and pulls the audience’s eyes along as Bobby, a bystander to his own life, stumbles through the vignettes. Through the director’s blocking and use of space, the show suggests life is not a continuous storyline but a series of small events that end up as a life lived.
The title “Company” is a pun, of course. It not only refers to the theatre company of actors, but also the company with which we seek to surround ourselves. “Company” is the show that made Sondheim’s Broadway reputation and the MTG does it justice. The show is layered with so much to say that, even after five decades, it still has relevance. Both first-time attendees and longtime aficionados will walk away having spent the show’s one hour and 45 minute run time in good company.
The Musical Theatre Guild of Butler’s production of “Company” takes the stage at the William A. Lehnerd Performance Hall in Butler’s Memorial Park on March 24, 25, 26, 31 and April 1. Showtimes are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at www.mtgbutler.org.
