‘Company’ at PPAC has funny moments, but feels a bit dated
PROVIDENCE – Bobbie is turning 35 and feeling ambivalent about it. Her married friends are throwing a surprise birthday party – – and wondering why Bobbie isn’t married yet.
That’s the jumping off point for “Company,” the
George Furth/Stephen Sondheim musical comedy that won five 2022 Tony Awards for its Broadway revival and now is touring North America, with a current stop at the Providence Performing Arts Center.
This production is Broadway quality, with an accomplished cast and orchestra to handle Sondheim’s score, a great-looking set, and thankfully, a finely calibrated sound system, so every lyric comes out loud and clear.
The show is structured by a series of vignettes, during which Bobbie visits with individual couples. Each episode is like a mini-sitcom as events escalate comically.
Argumentative Sarah and Harry, for example, resort to jujitsu to settle the score. Love-smitten Paul waits patiently as his fiancé, Jamie, hilariously gets cold feet about their marriage.
One of the funniest is when Bobbie brings pot to her visit with Jenny and her self-described “square” husband, David, and everyone starts feeling the effects. It’s a familiar concept but so well written, both in dialogue and lyrics, and performed with understated comedy by the actors, everything feels fresh.
Underlying the comedy are observations and insight on marriage, reflected in songs like “Sorry/Grateful,” about how husbands and wives feel about their decision to get married, and “The Little Things You Do Together,” which is more cynical than cozy. This 15-member cast does it all – and well: sing, be funny, and sometimes be serious.
The different locations for the visits are represented by human-sized, dollhouse-like boxes that variously contain a kitchen setting, a living room or an apartment. Sometimes the boxes stand alone; other times there are adjoining doors. The movement and the configurations are entertaining in themselves.
Admittedly, Sondheim’s music is not sing-along material, although in the moment, it perfectly suits the situations and emotions in the play, and fans will enjoy the way it is performed here. The production, however, runs about two-andthree-quarters hours, and some of the vignettes and songs go on a bit long.
The show itself has been updated since its 1970 Broadway debut, first by Furth and Sondheim in the early 1990s, and now by director Marianne Elliott. With Sondheim’s blessing, she changed the gender of the central character from Robert to Bobbie, telling the tale from a female perspective, and added diversity among her friends, the folks who give the musical its title. As lyrics say, “Phone rings, door chimes, in comes company.”
But it still feels a little dated, particularly in the central question: Why isn’t Bobbie married? Perhaps the most contemporary element in that query is that Bobbie’s undecided. That seems very much like a 21st century attitude.
Performances of “Company” continue through Sunday, April 28, at the Providence Performing Arts Center, 220 Weybosset St. Tickets are $38-$80 and available at the box office in the theater, by calling (401) 421-ARTS (2787) or by visiting ppacri.org.