Last night Michael and I went to watch the musical Company at the Manoel Theatre, put on by the MADC and directed by Denise Mulholland (director) and Rosetta Debattista (musical director).
As a musical-lover, I've been excited about Company ever since I heard that it was going to be performed, and I wasn't disappointed!
The musical's songs and lyrics are by Stephen Sondheim, a man who writes notoriously difficult but amazing songs, and the book (the script) is by George Furth. What makes Company different from your average musical is that it doesn't have a plot as such - instead it is more like a series of short plays based around a theme. There is a beginning and an end though!
The central character is Bobby (Mikhail Basmajan) who is thirty-five and single. He has three girlfriends, the 'dumb blonde' air hostess (Krista Paris), the rather deeper Kathy (Elaine Camilleri), and the... odd... Marta (Katherine Brown). His life revolves around other people, mainly his five sets of married friends: Sarah and Harry (Pia Zammit and Wesley Ellul) are on a diet and on the wagon, respectively, and taking it out on each other; Susan and Peter (Leontine and Jean Pierre Busuttil) are divorcing but getting on surprisingly well; Jenny and David (Isabel Warrington and Alan Paris) are getting on with dealing with the demands of life and their children; Amy and Paul (Charlotte Grech and John Marinelli) are about to be married after living together for years; and Joanne and Larry (Julie James and Alan Montanaro) have to deal with insecurity in their relationship.
As the musical progresses, Bobby spends time with each pair of married friends and finds that, although they're all pressuring him to get married, they all seem to be facing problems that they wouldn't have if they weren't married... on the other hand though, they still seem prefer being married to not. Bobby's search for Mrs. Right isn't going so well, as none of his girlfriends is quite what he has in mind, a perfect composite of his married female friends.
This musical has something in it for everyone. whether you're single, married, or, like us, soon-to-be-married.
As usual for the MADC, the supporting structure for the production was high quality - the costumes/hair/makeup were very appropriate (Marta's, for instance!), the set design very striking (wooden walkway and multi-layered backdrop), the lighting was like a fifteenth character (nicely done), and the backstage crew very efficient (them and their power screwdrivers). The smoke machine was very well-managed - it created a wonderful effect in conjunction with the lighting, without obscuring the action on stage or threatening to asphyxiate the audience - wonderful!
There's something very special about theatre and what is created on stage, something special that compels people to pay to sit and watch other people for three hours on a stage. This musical has at its base a very good libretto, but it's very demanding technically, and would flop if not performed well. I already knew both the directors by reputation, which is that they are both very good at what they do! When it comes to cast, having a couple of weak players can bring down an entire performance. In this case, out of the fourteen actors, a couple struggled a bit with the accents, and a couple with some of the singing, but on the whole it was a very good performance and I am seriously impressed.
I went looking forward to hearing Pia Zammit sing (she's a personal friend of mine you know, oh yes... *grin*) but I was thrilled when the other thirteen turned out to be very good too ;-)
Some of the solos were just incredible - I especially enjoyed Katherine Brown's "Another Hundred People", and when Krista Paris sang "Barcelona" I felt like looking around to see where that incredible voice was coming from! About a month ago I looked around for the soundtrack for Company, and I couldn't find one to buy and download online, but I bought a few songs from here and there, and one of the ones I found was "Ladies Who Lunch". I heard it performed by Barbara Cook and by Elaine Stritch, who originated the role of Joanne, and I was wondering who would sing it and whether it would measure up to the recordings. I'm very happy to say that Julie James's performance of this song was great and she really pulled off the stage presence that you HAVE to have for this number.
Oh yes, and Wesley Ellul's "Sorry-Grateful" was lovely (a nice mellow voice, ah!) and well really I could mention all the numbers...
It's hard to be negative about any of the singing because, hey, the songs are horrendously difficult - so when someone nails their song it sounds fantastic, and when someone doesn't quite hit it, it is the difference between being 'very good' and being 'good enough'. A nice change from productions where the difference was between 'quite bad' and 'truly horrible'! For instance, Charlotte Grech's "Getting Married Today" wasn't always understandable, but how can you be understandable when you have to rattle off the lyrics at breakneck speed? I applaud her bravery, because a song like that would terrify me, and I think she did really well. Another song that was a little ragged in places was "You Could Drive A Person Crazy", performed by the three girlfriends, Katherine Brown, Krista Paris and Elaine Camilleri - but again, it's such a very difficult song that instead I was impressed at how well they did it, and it's one of my favourite songs from this musical.
There were ensemble songs with intelligibility problems, and several times I only understood what was being said because I'd just read the libretto and remembered the words - sometimes the problem was microphones, and sometimes the music (especially the drumset) was too overpowering. But this didn't happen too often and even when it did, it was only for a short time.
Although the solos were so good, what I liked the most about this musical was the ensemble numbers. Every single one was great, and the cast really did look like an ensemble of a uniformly high standard (wow for fourteen people!) and there wasn't even one person who looked weak. It is so amazing to see a group of people perform so well together. They sang complicated harmonies, moved around in precise blocking patterns, and performed rather effective choreography. Well done!
In the non-sung parts of the musical, a few scenes felt like they dragged a little, especially towards the beginning, but most of them had a lot of great interaction between the characters. For instance, Wesley Ellul and Pia Zammit's amazingly physical karate match, and the very poignant scene between Jean Pierre Busuttil and Mikhail Basmajan. The couple I enjoyed the most was Julie James and Alan Montanaro, because the way they spoke, touched and even looked at each other was so believeable in the context of the relationship they portrayed.
From where I was sitting, I could occasionally see Rosetta Debattista as she conducted the orchestra. In something like this, the conducter has to be spot-on, especially in those songs that fiendishly mix song and dialogue at all kinds of tempos, because the conductor is the link between the musicians and the performer (who can't even see each other)... well she did a fantastic job both in the actual conducting and in the overall musical direction.
The quality of the performance testifies to the quality of Denise Mulholland's direction - she demanded a lot of her cast and she got it, and led them to create something truly beautiful.
This is a show that I left thinking, I want to watch that again!
So, I highly recommend this production and suggest that you go to see it; tickets are available from the Manoel Theatre Booking Office on 21246389 or you can book online at http://www.teatrumanoel.com.mt - Company will be performed next weekend on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of March, all performances at 8pm.
