re: Company 1995 Revival?
re: Company 1995 Revival?
NathanLaneStalker
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/11/06
#1Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 12:33am
How was it? I've been thinking about buying the cast recording. I'm guessing it was a flop because it only ran from Oct 5 - Dec 3. It starred Charlotte d'Amboise, LaChanze, and Debra Monk.
"I'm tellin' you, the only times I really feel the presence of God are when I'm having sex and during a great Broadway musical." - Nathan Lane - Jeffrey
FoscasBohemianDream
Broadway Star Joined: 1/20/06
#1re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 12:38am
The main reason it ran for such a short time was because it was produced by the non-for-profit Roundabout, so it was a limited engagement. There were talks of transferring to a commercial run but a huge controversy was created when the producer asked for Boyd Gaines to be replaced (Scott Ellis refused to do so), he also failed to get the money necessary for the transfer. At the end things got very messy, Sondheim released a pretty harsh statement, the producer (can't remember who it was right now)released a statement answering to Sondheim's, and at the end of the day the cast and crew were told that the show would not be transferring.
EDIT: John N. Harts was the producer, and here is a link explaining in detail what happened.
Company Controversy
Updated On: 11/18/06 at 12:38 AM
NathanLaneStalker
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/11/06
#2re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 12:39amAh! Was it good? What did Sondheim say?
"I'm tellin' you, the only times I really feel the presence of God are when I'm having sex and during a great Broadway musical." - Nathan Lane - Jeffrey
FoscasBohemianDream
Broadway Star Joined: 1/20/06
#3re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 12:42amI enjoyed Boyd Gaines (who actually had attendance issues due to vocal health problems) as well as Jane Krakowski and Veanne Cox. Veanne Cox performed "(Not) Getting Married" today with such perfection, she stopped the show the night I saw her. Krakowski just has a lot of charisma on stage and she's at her best when working on an ensemble. My biggest problem with this production was Debra Monk's Joanne.
NathanLaneStalker
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/11/06
#4re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 12:43amI LOVE Deb Monk. I don't know to much about the show really. It's one Sondheim show I need to get up to date with.
"I'm tellin' you, the only times I really feel the presence of God are when I'm having sex and during a great Broadway musical." - Nathan Lane - Jeffrey
CurtainPullDowner
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
#5re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 12:51am
I have said this before.
It was so under rated, an amazing cast and it was actually a hit for the Roundabout and would have transfered if it wasn't for the Producers clashing.
Lot's of people who didn't see it assume it was not good, but I thought it was.
Actually better than good.
Monk went anti Stritch and was brilliant, La Chanze kicked ass with ANOTHER HUNDRED PEOPLE and Cox was Drop dead Dazzling.
also Danny Bernstein, Jane Krakowski, Kate Burton, they were all terrific and Rob Marshall's staging and Tony Walton's set and Ivey Long's costumes, and Scott Ellis's direction of the Firth scenes was really great.
OK I'm done.
Updated On: 11/18/06 at 12:51 AM
FoscasBohemianDream
Broadway Star Joined: 1/20/06
#6re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 12:54am
Here are some excerpts from the NY Times positive review by Vincent Canby:
"There are several surprises in this "Company," including the performance by the pretty, rail-thin Ms. Cox, who plays a panicked bride wearing a mini-skirted, "Baby Doll"-like wedding dress. She receives the evening's most spontaneous applause for her big, phenomenally funny delivery of "Getting Married Today," when the bride suddenly decides she's not about to go through with it.
Jane Krakowski is a sweetheart who could melt steel as April, an airline stewardess, one of Robert's one-night stands, who complains that she can't get interested in herself because she's so boring. La Chanze delivers a powerhouse presentation of "Another Hundred People." She plays Marta, another of Robert's girlfriends, a young woman in love with New York because it's "for the me's of this world." Charlotte d'Amboise appears as Kathy, Robert's third girlfriend. Ms. d'Amboise also dances a brief solo intended (I think) to be an erotic evocation of love, though it doesn't yet fit neatly into the context.
The women in this production register much more strongly than the men, possibly because they are less passive. Ms. Burton is a delight as the karate expert. Debra Monk gives what is almost a combative performance as the tough, wise, much-married Joanne, the role originated by Elaine Stritch, who's no easy act to follow even 25 years later."
"The production's toughest assignment falls to Mr. Gaines. A Tony-winner for "She Loves Me," he's a fine singing actor who has no problem with the show's demanding score. He's especially effective with "Side by Side by Side," "Being Alive" and "Marry Me a Little," which states (without defining) Robert's equivocal nature and is the show's one new song."
"Robert is the production's only real flaw, and that flaw is built in. Unless he's singing, he's a genial, mild-mannered bore. Robert is what it's all about, but we know more about his pals than we do about him. This has the effect of giving "Company" a split personality that only the incandescent Sondheim score renders irrelevant."
NY Times Review
CurtainPullDowner
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
#8re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 1:07amThis isn't meant to be a slam.....Curtainpulldowner, you have the strangest posting style I have ever seen. Almost like Hiku(sp I know) or Rosie's blog....are you Rosie?
I got rid of my teeth at a young age because... I'm straight. Teeth are for gay people. That's why fairies come and get them
NathanLaneStalker
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/11/06
#9re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 1:14amNah. He can't be Rosie....he spells better.
"I'm tellin' you, the only times I really feel the presence of God are when I'm having sex and during a great Broadway musical." - Nathan Lane - Jeffrey
CurtainPullDowner
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
IssaMe
Broadway Star Joined: 5/15/03
#11re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 8:57am
Actually, it was pretty good.
And understudy Clow (who went on almost more times than constantly-out Gaines) is the third greatest Bobby of all time---after Barrowman and Kert.
LI Larry
Stand-by Joined: 7/25/06
#12re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 10:05amI saw this revival. Boyd Gaines was out for nearly 3 weeks because the role was too taxing for his voice. I saw it with the understudy (who had played a supporting role in "Bloodbrothers". The understudy was not as good but the production itself was great. I remember speaking to one of the people on staff there and there was a power struggle which is why it never got to Broadway. The producers wanted Michael Rupert to take it to Broadway because they weren't too sure about whether Boyd Gaines' voice would make it. Sondheim wanted Gaines to do it. The producer refused and the show finished out it's run without a transfer.
IMissNYC
Stand-by Joined: 1/7/06
#13re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 12:59pmI saw this revival as well. I really enjoyed it and had always loved the music but had never seen it on stage before. I was truly impressed with La Chanze and Jane Krakowski who always impresses me in whatever she's in. I have tickets for the new revival for March. I'm excited to see what they do with it. It's one of my all time favorite shows.
FoscasBohemianDream
Broadway Star Joined: 1/20/06
#14re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 1:26pmAccording to Scott Ellis and Sondheim, John N. Harts asked for certain changes in the production before a transfer, apparently every time Ellis changed something Harts would ask for another change. Ellis and Sondheim both said that the only reason this happened was because Harts was not able to raise the necessary capital to transfer the show for a commercial run. Harts argues that Ellis and Sondheim are lying and that the only reason the show did not transfer was because Gaines was not replaced with Rupert. We'll never know who's telling the truth I guess.
#15re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 1:28pm
Lots of threads on this lately. I guess the new revival sparked a lot of the interest in the 95 revival.
I love the recording for the 95 revival. It's worth getting. Thought It can't beat the OBCR.
wickedrentq
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/6/04
#16re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 4:40pmThere was a bit of changes to the book--some dialogue. Who was responsible for this? Most of it has been integrated into the new revival, and I think it's very effective and helpful. Bobby telliing Kathy her problem is wanting too little, most of what Larry says about Joanne after The Ladies Who Lunch...nice, subtle changes.
"If there was a Mount Rushmore for Broadway scores, "West Side Story" would be front and center. It snaps, it crackles it pops! It surges with a roar, its energy and sheer life undiminished by the years" - NYPost reviewer Elisabeth Vincentelli
WalkOn
Broadway Star Joined: 8/7/06
#17re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 9:05pm
It was mediocre...actually dull.
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart; and you'll never walk alone.
#18re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/18/06 at 10:41pmI have Lachanze's Another Hundred People and have always hated it. I feel like she over enunciated to obnoxiousness on it, though I can't really pin point what irks me about her voice, particularily on that song.
Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done.
-John Patrick Shanley
#19re: Company 1995 Revival?
Posted: 11/19/06 at 6:31am
Unless I'm misrembering, which is possible, the extra lines for Kathy and Larry were not in the Roundabout production. My memory is that they were first used in the Donmar production a couple of months later.
I agree that they're a good addition, helping to flesh out two characters who are particularly underwritten. I would imagine that Furth wrote those lines.
My memory is that the most notable textual changes in the Roundabout production were the cutting of a couple of Joanne's lines in the first scene (lines that no one except Stritch has seemed able to make funny), the change to the lyric of "You Could Drive a Person Crazy," the addition of "Marry Me a LIttle." I think that they also cut Marta's questions to Robert about how many blacks and Puerto Ricans he knows (which are back in the published revision), but perhaps I'm mistaken. There may have been others that I'm not remembering.
Most of the book changes that are in the published revision were first used in the Donmar production. A couple of changes in the Donmar production didn't make their way into the published revision, notably the changes to the dialogue interjections in "Being Alive."
FWIW, I didn't greatly like the Roundabout production. Veanne Cox was quite good, James Clow did well under the circumstances. LaChanze tried or was directed to make "Another Hundred People" a song about how exciting life in Manhattan is, which was not the first time nor, unfortunately, the last I've seen that approach taken. Jane Krakowski was terrific in her first scene but then fell into the common trap of playing April as dumb.
There was not much else notable about it one way or another, except for how miscast Debra Monk was. Not her fault. I didn't think Scott Ellis helped her find an approach that would work for her, especially in the songs.
One thing that I did think was interesting was that the production (except for La Chanze) had a dark feel to it. Overall, it felt darker to me than the original production, though I mostly couldn't tell you why. Dark lighting was some of it. Hal Prince made sure that there was bright lighting for most of the scenes in the original production. I also didn't like the idea that Robert's ceiling is mirrored, made clear when he was in bed with April. Made him seem unnecessarily creepy.
The production was full of good people, but nothing much special happened. Not the end of the world, but the truth was that there wasn't much interest in a commercial transfer because the word of mouth on the production (which was sold out or nearly for the Roundabout run before previews started) was not great. The Nederlanders passed on their option and . . . well, the story is told at the link already posted.
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