Last week, Stephan Soundheim’s “Company” was brought to life by LUU’s Music Theatre Society.The musical comedy, which originally opened on Broadway in the Spring of 1970, ran for four nights in the Riley Smith Hall from February 26th-March 1st (if you didn’t catch it, you missed out!). The cast was made up of fourteen members who were accompanied by a live, on-stage orchestra. The mis-en-scene (the staging) may have been lacking a little, but the acting sure made up for it.
The musical is set in New York and is centred on a 35-year-old, well-liked and single man named Robert (played by Joe Gaus). He is a friend of five married couples, whose wishes are for him to drop his bachelor status and to get married. Robert is romantically involved with three women: Marta (Sarah Spence) a quirky, outgoing, free spirit who believes in love at first sight, April (Sophie Roberts) a petite, dumb airhostess whose naïve nature lands herself in Robert’s bed and Kathy (Ellie MacPherson) a beautiful, uptown girl who unbeknown to Robert is planning on getting married. Throughout the musical, the audience is led to believe that Robert will end up marrying one of the three…
Accompanied by the phenomenal orchestra, the opening number sees the entire chorus of “married friends” mutually invite Bobby to “come on over for dinner! We’ll be so glad to see you! Bobby come on over for dinner … just be the three of us, only the three of us!” This song is the motif throughout “Company” and is an upbeat number made up of a multi-level chorus, which portrays how persistent each couple is with helping Robert find his match.
The plot follows Robert visiting each couple that inadvertently show “Bobby” the dark sides to marriage, played out through songs. One couple in particular stood out for me: Sarah (Holly-Rose Hersham-Durham) and Harry (Tom Dixon). They were a comical pair who played a convincing married couple with small,petty issues within their relationship. The couple humoured Robert as they played out a karate fight and won over the audience with their relatable marriage.
However, it was Amy (Chloe Houghton) who received the biggest applause of the night, with her fantastic performance in the song “Getting Married Today”.The title is actually contradictory to what she wants, which is to not get married to the love-smitten Paul (Alex Weston). The song is extremely fast in tempo and the audience were left on the edge of their seats wondering if Amy would pass out before she got to the end of it!
Each couple had their own scenewith most having positive moral meanings to their story, as well as showing Robert the problems with marriage. Jenny (Rachel Murphy) and Dave (Kyle Harrison-Pope) are a couple who miss freedom but point out that in marriage you take part in things just to make the other person happy, even if it’s something you wouldn’t do otherwise (in this case smoke marijuana together!). Then there’san odd couple, Susan (Eleanor Pead) and Peter (John Meki),who get divorced but stay together as they believe that they’re happier without marriage. Here a comical scene is acted, where Peter tries to ‘bed’ Robert by telling him all the homosexual experiences he’s had. The two actors create a true air of awkwardness something that can sometimes feel false within live performances.Next up is Larry (Peter Hodkinson) and two-time pessimist divorcee Joanne (Zoe Cave),portraying a couple who are wrapped up in money. Despite there being visible cracks in their relationship they would rather be together than alone. Actress Zoe Cave covered well after a prop malfunction and was in my opinion the best actress of the night (even if she did throw water all over the front row!).
The LUU Music Theatre put on a fantastic performance and the orchestra really added to the staging and the musical as a whole. There were some great solo singing performances from Tom Dixon, Chloe Houghton, Sophie Roberts and Rachel Murphy, coupled with a memorabledance number in the beginning of Act II, which saw the whole cast bust a move.The American accents felt realistic and each role and scene played out convincingly (even the raunchy sex scene that left the audience not knowing where to look!). Overall, the society showcased a great show and received a well-deserved standing ovation on their finale performance.
By Meg McWhinney
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