From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Re: "Company" in concert
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 15:16:14 GMT

In article <1jvcbrINN7k@mizar.usc.edu> 
adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson) writes:

>The Long Beach Civic Light Opera's AIDS benefit concert
>yesterday -- "Company" performed in concert by the original
>cast (with the exception of the late Charles Braswell) 

Who'd they get to replace him?  I read this somewhere, but can't call it
to mind.

>-- has
>to have been one of the most exciting nights I've ever spent
>in the theater.  

Argh.  *envy*

>The concert was hosted by Angela Lansbury and
>narrated by George Hearn, 

So what did Angela's "hosting" involve?

>and when it was all over Stephen
>Sondheim, Harold Prince, and George Furth were brought on
>stage to say a few words.  That was all exciting enough, but
>the concert!  It was an evening of highlights.  Everyone
>without exception sang better last night than they had on the
>original cast album.  

That's amazing right there.  I was sure they'd have to transpose the
whole show down a perfect fifth to accommodate everyone's voice now
(let's face it, few of them save Teri Ralston and maybe Pamela Myers
were primarily vocalists, and some sound to be pushing their limits on
the cast recording).

>....And that was
>followed by Pamela Myers' "Another Hundred People".  Myers
>sounds better now than ever before, and she's rethought the
>song a bit and was absolutely devestating.  

She turned up on one of those Broadway Tributes on PBS a few years back
(to do You Could Drive a Person Crazy with the other two), and I was
stunned by her improved appearance and sound.  She's made good use of
the years since Company, whatever she's been doing.

>....  And then there was Stritch singing "The Ladies Who
>Lunch".  I was worried that she would go overboard and do her
>shtik, but she didn't.  It was a superbly acted -- and
>superbly *sung* -- version of the song.  (Although she dropped
>a beat near the end, 

Of course.  (Sorry, I'm not an admirer of Stritch, though I agree she
was classic in this role.)

>the gifted conducter (John McDaniel)
>managed, somehow, to get the orchestra -- and they used the
>original orchestrations, by the way -- back into synch with
>Stritch almost instantly.  And then there was Dean Jones'
>"Being Alive".  No one else comes close to Jones on "Being
>Alive", and his performance of it last night was electrifying. 

I find his sound excruciating on the cast recording.  Has he improved in
this respect?  And can he really still get up to those A flats?

>I'm sorry this event was left to Long Beach to put on, for if
>it had been done in New York it would have been videotaped
>and, no doubt, recorded.  But I don't imagine I'll soon forget
>how fabulous it all was.

It'll be all the more of a feather in your cap -- so many of the
ShowFreaks(TM) were on the wrong coast to attend this.  Still, I bet
there will be a brisk trade in bootleg audio tapes, one way or another.

I have to say that I did not find the original cast *quite* beyond
improvement.  Larry Kert really did sing the role of Bobby more
easefully and expressively than Dean Jones.  And good as Beth Howland
was, her replacement after a year, Marian Hailey (moviegoers may
remember her for her scenes with Bob Dishy in the movie "Lovers and
Other Strangers"), actually did the whole song as written (including the
little notes that are customarily omitted to snatch a breath), with the
tune and the words both audible.

But let me not seem to carp.  This was one of the most talented casts
ever assembled for a musical, and the show itself is one of the ones
that changed the form.  In 1970 I was sure the musical was running out
of steam (the 60s had been a pretty uneventful decade in that respect),
and then Company came along and showed us that there were whole areas of
possbility still to explore, and exciting music still to be written.
I'm grateful to have seen the original production.

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre