Company - Broadway Revival Cast Recording

The fact that Company, Stephen Sondheim's breakthrough musical, is a major work has, over the past 36 years, dawned even on those who initially failed to recognize it. But this recognition is only partly dependent on John Doyle's current Broadway production, which, most unusually, is no more effective seen live than by listening to its original cast recording.

Doyle's stratagem, of having the cast serve as the orchestra, was, in an underfinanced British regional theater, making a virtue out of necessity. But when, on affluent Broadway, there is no longer such necessity, the virtue ceases to be one. Why not cast actors on their acting alone rather than on their music-making? And why make even such ambidextrous performers divide their concentration? Moreover, why have the theatergoer distracted by something peculiar that can sidetrack his attention?

On a CD, these problems no longer obtain. In the recording studio, whoever sings and plays on one or, preferably, more instruments can do full justice to each activity thanks to retakes and electronic enhancement. And an audience member doesn't have to develop a split personality, because he is no longer an amazed viewer, only an undivided listener.

So do not err by fearing the CD to be more joyless for being Doyleless. Here, whether by god-given talent or manmade technology, everyone and everything sounds perfect, and we can close our eyes and concentrate on Sondheim's groundbreaking lyrics and idiosyncratic music. There is even a further bonus: The disc allows things that the stage doesn't permit. Thus Raul Esparza, the excellent Robert, can sometimes lower his voice to a dramatically effective whisper that wouldn't carry in the theater.

The score contains some choice Sondheim: "Another Hundred People," "The Little Things You Do Together," "Side by Side by Side," "Barcelona," and equally winning others: not a weak link in the lot. Thus "The Ladies Who Lunch," in the original production, launched Elaine Stritch's career; here the gifted Barbara Walsh proves a condign successor. If, at times, she seems to be echoing Stritch, it is merely because certain things can be done only one way.

The provocative "Marry Me a Little," cut from the original production, is reinstated here, and, along with the closing "Being Alive," displays the most highbrow, eyebrow-raising lyrics. They would have fascinated Sigmund Freud, and should do as much for you.

[IMG:R]Consider the beginning of the former, sung by Robert: "Marry me a little,/ Love me just enough./ Cry, but not too often,/ Play, but not too rough./ Keep a tender distance,/ So we'll both be free./ That's the way it ought to be./ I'm ready." What kind of proposal is this? How much is "enough"? Control emotion if possible; limit your connubial demands? How does a distance get "tender"? How free is "free"? Does it mean an open marriage?

Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Petruchio has a thing or two to learn from Robert. Even weirder is Robert's final concept of marriage in "Being Alive": "Someone to hold you too close./ Someone to hurt you too deep./ Someone to sit in your chair,/ To ruin your sleep." This squarely contradicts the previous "just enough" and "tender distance." Is this some kind of sadomasochism?

Strange business, unparalleled even in Lorenz Hart's or John Latouche's sophistication tinged with cynicism. And the music reinforces—or, rather, redestabilizes—it with its twists and turns: melodious, yes, but in a complex, unpredictable, unsettling way. And Mary-Mitchell Campbell's orchestrations are more skittery, more nervous than Jonathan Tunick's original ones. They corroborate the novelty of the music and lyrics: neurosis.

Let's face it: most of us megalopolitans are neurotic—like the characters in Company, which is what its music and lyrics so trenchantly convey. The effects of urban living are what this valuable disc eloquently evokes; listening to it is the aural equivalent of looking in the mirror.