SONDHEIM DONE TO PERFECTION
By Evan Hnerson, Daily News, May 21, 2004

FOR three short weeks -- one more than we usually get -- the musical series Reprise! is turning UCLA's Freud Playhouse into a "Company' town. And there's a lot of praise to go around.
Hats off to musical theater actors who also find time to do TV. Or maybe I meant that the other way around. Bottoms up to an ensemble that really knows how to be an ensemble -- on stage as well as in the program. And here's to director David Lee, the SoCal-raised co-creator of "Frasier' whose ongoing love affair with the works of Stephen Sondheim is showing no signs of losing its heat.

"Company,' the 1970 Sondheim/George Furth musical about bachelor Bobby caroming dizzily off his married friends in the bustling Big Apple, may get frequent stagings, but rarely of this caliber. Lee's production, with musical director Gerald Sternbach handling the baton, feels like one of those stellar occasions when someone drew up a wish list and everybody said, "Where do I sign?'

Of its whopping 14 roles, "Company' has but a single leading player and a baker's dozen one-shot character roles. Sondheim and Furth, who originally set out to create a bunch of unconnected one acts, have spread the wealth liberally: Everybody gets at least one juicy song, scene or dance. Still, there's no escaping the fact that, with the exception of Bobby, once your character's scene is up, you rejoin the group.

The demands aren't slight. The show requires a strong dancer, a couple of belters, a patter singer whose tongue-twisting vocals can outpace Seabiscuit, a convincing ditz and a husky voiced showstopper. And that's only the women! Reprise's! ladies -- several of them company veterans -- include Anastasia Barzee, Sharon Lawrence, Jean Louisa Kelly, Judith Light and the wonderful Amy Pietz, who steals every scene she enters as April, the dim-bulb flight attendant.
Sondheim and Furth let the men off more easily. Their songs aren't nearly as tricky and their characters are less fleshed out. Kevin Chamberlin, Scott Waara, Richard Kline, Josh Radnor and John Scherer have their marching orders and they serve the script ably. They know not to outshine the ladies. Or the show's main man.

That would be Bobby (baby!), the third wheel, the observer, the dependable unmarried best friend. In Christopher Sieber (star of "It's All Relative' and last seen in Sondheim's "Into the Woods' at the Ahmanson), Lee has found an actor who has mastered the art of perplexity. It's in his expression, in the hunch of his shoulders, the uncertainty of his stance. Silently and in action, Sieber's Bobby projects a likable air of "Did I really just hear that? Is this really happening?'
Lee smartly keys into the musical's "Alice in Wonderland' qualities as Bobby bounces from encounter to encounter, between his married friends and his trio of girlfriends. It's as if the marijuana haze of Bobby's joint-smoking night with square pals Jenny and David (Barzee and Chamberlin) never quite wears off. Our hero may well be stoned at the start of the second act as he imagines his friends invading his apartment -- with a marching band, no less -- to join him for "Side by Side by Side.'

"Company' has a killer score that Sternbach and his larger- than-standard band (seated atop the vaguely deco panels of Bradley Kaye's set) play to the nines. Deborah Gibson, grown up from her bubble gum pop days and looking like a "Hair' refugee, scores with the New York anthem "Another Hundred People.' Jean Louisa Kelly doesn't trip a syllable of Sondheim's rapid fire "Getting Married Today.' Chamberlin, Waara and Kline bring a lovely poignancy to the sweet/sad "Sorry-Grateful.' Sieber reaches high notes -- all of Bobby's anxiousness evaporated -- for the show-closing "Being Alive.'

Truly, this is as smoothly blended a group of performers as a musical theater lover could hope to find. Kudos again to Lee -- who worked similar magic with a one-night concert version of Sondheim's "Assassins' for Reprise! at the beginning of the season -- and to the company's casting director, Bruce H. Newberg. May Reprise! continue to have this kind of talent wealth. May they always be able to offer vehicles that are as enticing as "COMPANY."

 

 

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