Audiences Find Themselves in Good Company

About a year ago, John Doyle's radical, Tony-winning reinvention of Sweeney Todd shocked skeptics with its minimalist staging and actors who doubled as their own orchestra. When it closed this past September, it didn't go without leaving the light on for its very capable successor, Doyle's revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Company (originally produced on Broadway in 1970)-a revolutionary exploration of sex, love, marriage, and commitment in New York City.

Doyle has refined his technique here, again employing his actor-musician concept, yet allowing it to behave differently-and it is anything but a gimmick. His approach to strip down a show to only its barest necessities exposes the story's deepest emotional core, as he sets his stunning Company in the mind of Robert (Raúl Esparza): a conflicted, serially single best friend to five married couples, who contemplates his own plight upon turning 35 and finally having to grow up under the influence of his surroundings.

Save for a few dated references, Doyle-aided by a masterful creative team-has managed to pull his production entirely out of the '70s and make it timeless. Mary-Mitchell Campbell has expertly reorchestrated Sondheim's remarkable score with crisp, expressive warmth, removing unnecessary '70s flair. David Gallo's sparse but elegant unit set, Ann Hould-Ward's sleek, chic, black-and-white costuming, and Thomas C. Hase's breathtaking lighting design come together to form a unified interplay that serves Doyle's visionary interpretation.

Comedy darkened, this Company seeks realism and trades in the more typical sitcom sensibility for an unsettlingly sharp atmosphere of chilly distance and the ambivalent discontents lying in even the most loving relationship-it is all too fitting that Gallo's peripheral blocks resemble large ice cubes or museum displays. Company's structure is nonlinear, and the first of the isolated book scenes features Harry and Sarah (Keith Buterbaugh and a divinely funny Kristin Huffman) in a karate demonstration-its abstract, physically distant staging may be disconcerting at first to those new to Doyle's concept, but sets the tone for all to come. Doyle's suitably rigid staging puts Bobby at the still center of the action, unable to participate, but consistently daunted by the choices he must make.

Doyle's direction enhances the source material and enhances the meaning of "company"; Bobby's friends are quite literally the accompaniment to his solitude, and within themselves a true theatrical company of actors and musicians. In the opening title song, surrounded by "those good and crazy people, [his] married friends," Bobby clings to his eternal bachelorhood by way of the phallic column in his apartment, threatened by the looming orchestra. In the show-stopping Act Two opener, "Side by Side by Side/What Would We Do Without You?" Bobby is lost in the shuffle of-and in the end sidelined from-his friends' marching band antics. His efforts are touching, but he ultimately cannot join in-he has no instrument of his own, only an insignificant kazoo. When his male friends attempt to set him up on dates in "Have I Got a Girl for You," the claustrophobic nature of his encounters are taken to a new level, as he is trapped by a lineup of menacing musical instruments. Doyle's staging digs deeply into Bobby's fears and painful progress as the instruments stand to represent the commitment Bobby is avoiding.

Sondheim's simple, beautiful "Marry Me a Little," the Act One closer that was cut from the original production, has been kept in this revival, and Esparza's gorgeously sung rendition is one of its most brilliant moments.

Esparza continues to prove himself as one of today's finest actors, bringing his characteristic brooding intensity and magnetic charm to the greatest performance of his already outstanding career. A wildly gifted performer with a uniquely beautiful, vibrato-heavy singing voice, he is the perfect Bobby: self-aware and inviting with bold charisma, yet heartbreakingly damaged, defensive, and withdrawn. If Bobby is often interpreted as a cipher, Esparza gives him every reason and then some for being so beloved by his friends. Even in Bobby's arresting moments, he exudes a lovable sweetness laden with acerbic wit and sarcasm. The sense that something is brewing beneath his detachment (ultimately revealed in a visceral "Being Alive") makes for a performance mesmerizing on its own, but one that also embodies Company's aesthetic on the whole.

Doyle's daring spin on this classic finds within its comedy and good nature a serious, deeply affected heart. This Company is something special: more moving than it let's you think it will be-a wholly marvelous, unforgettable theatrical event not to be missed. For Doyle, lightning has indeed struck twice, and Broadway is better for it.