Good company
Garth Wilshere
Toi Cabaret: Company (Stephen Sondheim), Toi Whakaari second year students, Museum Hotel, reviewed by Garth Wilshere
THIS year Stephen Sondheim is 80. He’s had a theatre named after him on Broadway, and New Zealand has seen four productions of his groundbreaking music theatre pieces Assassins, two productions of Sweeney Todd and this production of the 1970 piece Company, his breakthrough work.
It broke the music theatre mould by being a series of short vignettes on marriage based around Robert who is celebrating his 35th birthday, unmarried but an observer of his friends’ marriages. Although he has a string of girlfriends he is unable to commit to marriage himself.
It is a complex work requiring an adult understanding and sensibility.
This simple yet effective performance did the work justice. All the actors’ gestures, looks, and relationships were conveyed with understanding.
Director Jonathon Hendry has done a fantastic job evoking the New York milieu. Accents were consistent. The characters were all well delineated.
For many of the actors this was their first foray into music theatre. Sondheim’s music is technically demanding and they handled the delivery of the text and music as if they’d been doing it for years: a tribute to singing teacher and music director Jane Keller. On piano was music theatre maven Mark Dorrell who, along with his many credentials, has worked with Sondheim.
The choreography, by Anthony Cranwell, was fun and funky and the students’ dancing was outstanding.
It would be invidious to single out individual performers and performances because it was so evenly cast and performed. All the actors made you forget their youth and relative inexperience and drew their audience into the magical world.
THIS year Stephen Sondheim is 80. He’s had a theatre named after him on Broadway, and New Zealand has seen four productions of his groundbreaking music theatre pieces Assassins, two productions of Sweeney Todd and this production of the 1970 piece Company, his breakthrough work.
It broke the music theatre mould by being a series of short vignettes on marriage based around Robert who is celebrating his 35th birthday, unmarried but an observer of his friends’ marriages. Although he has a string of girlfriends he is unable to commit to marriage himself.
It is a complex work requiring an adult understanding and sensibility.
This simple yet effective performance did the work justice. All the actors’ gestures, looks, and relationships were conveyed with understanding.
Director Jonathon Hendry has done a fantastic job evoking the New York milieu. Accents were consistent. The characters were all well delineated.
For many of the actors this was their first foray into music theatre. Sondheim’s music is technically demanding and they handled the delivery of the text and music as if they’d been doing it for years: a tribute to singing teacher and music director Jane Keller. On piano was music theatre maven Mark Dorrell who, along with his many credentials, has worked with Sondheim.
The choreography, by Anthony Cranwell, was fun and funky and the students’ dancing was outstanding.
It would be invidious to single out individual performers and performances because it was so evenly cast and performed. All the actors made you forget their youth and relative inexperience and drew their audience into the magical world.
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