[NEohioPAL] Review of FPAC's "Company"

[Bob Abelman]

FPAC keeps very good 'Company'

 

Bob Abelman

 

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,

The Morning Journal, Geauga Times Courier

Member, American Theatre Critics Association 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald 5/6/11

 

Company is one of those shows where Stephen Sondheim's lyrics and music so outshine George Furth's script that many productions are more of a song-fest than a story with songs about the pros and cons of marriage.

 

Case in point: The recent New York Philharmonic concert version of Company, stripped down to its tunes with little connective tissue.

 

Not so with the Fairmount Performing Arts Conservatory's production at the Mayfield Village Civic Center.  This is a Company chock-full of talented actors who can sing, dance and generate rich, interesting characters, brought together by a director who marries Sondheim's style with Furth's storytelling.  

 

In fact, director Fred Sternfeld places the story in this musical comedy center stage-literally-by keeping the central character, Bobby, center stage on what is the equivalent of a large Lazy Susan.  The mechanism rotates and vacillates along with devout bachelor Bobby's shifting perception of the institution of marriage.  It also serves as different locations-a New York apartment terrace, a bed, a couch-as Bobby encounters through a series of vignettes his array of overly protective married friends and assorted of lovers.

 

The mechanism crowds the performance space, but scenic designer Trad A Burns surrounds  the stage with illuminated glass panels through which the ensemble can sing to Bobby.  This keeps the intimate stage from getting cluttered.

 

So too does Bebe Weinberg-Katz's very clever choreography.  She manages to both avoid and creatively incorporate the mechanism into the ensemble numbers, which is no small feat given so many feet.   

 

Conner O'Brien is an immediately endearing, absolutely adorable Bobby.  He has the wherewithal to find all the lyrical and melodic complexities in Sondheim's work and the voice to effectively express them.  He manages to milk the music and lyrics for all they are worth.  His "Someone is Waiting," "Marry Me A Little" and "Being Alive" are captivating.

 

O'Brien is surrounded by an exceptional cast of players who form a rich, robust and balanced collective.  They play their roles broadly, to establish the premise that they are figments of Bobby's reflections, but are not so broad as to undermine the rather complex issues the play addresses.  

 

Despite its strong ensemble, this production is at its best when individual performers step forward and take on one of Sondheim's brilliantly conceived songs.  These songs become showcases for performers willing to take creative risks; they become showstoppers when performers dare to go out on an emotional ledge.  This FPAC production is filthy with showstoppers.

 

Ursula Cataan, as Amy, takes the pre-nuptial panic attack "Getting Married Today" and turns it into a full-blown meltdown.  She throws herself completely into this comedic number and delivers a performance that would be the pinnacle of her professional career if not for so many other memorable performances.  She is brilliant.  

 

So is spark plug Natalie Green as Marta, a street-smart native New Yorker who is one of the three lovers/sirens in Bobby's life.  In "Another Hundred People," Green beautifully captures the adrenaline rush that is NYC and the improbability of any one of the multitudes connecting with any other in that environment.  

 

Tracee Patterson, as Joanne, delivers-no, expectorates-the biting, inebriated anthem to affluent housewives, "The Ladies Who Lunch," which became the signature song for its originator Elaine Stritch.  Patterson not only makes the song her own, but adds an astringency that exposes more pain and raw nerve than Stritch ever managed to muster.  This is a song that is both hard to watch and impossible to take your eyes off of.

 

Even with these superb individual performances and a fine off-stage orchestra directed by Jonathan Swoboda, FPAC's Company is greater than the sum of its magnificent parts and more than just the songs.  It never loses sight of the story and it never loses its audience's undivided attention.

 

Company continues through May 14 at the Mayfield Village Civic Center, 6622 Wilson Mills Road in Mayfield Village.  For tickets, which are $14 to $25, call 440-338-3171.
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