Thursday, February 21, 2008

Company

There's a back story to this one. Check it out here. (Go ahead, it's o.k.. I'll wait.)

I just got done watching Great Performances on PBS, which showed a version of the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival which gives my current post its title.

When you get a chance, watch the rerun. My childhood friend is great, as are a number of the other supporting players.

The star is awesome.

And the fellow who captured the stage play for television during one of its last nights on the boards did everything right. His name is Lonny Price, and here's a reviewer who agrees with me:
On PBS's Great Performances, director Lonny Price tries to do nothing else but to get inside the pictures and the personas that controversial director John Doyle made for the stage. This Company doesn't look like most TV. But for the musical-theater lovers who, like me, don't get to Broadway nearly as much as they'd like, TV's Company comes as close as it can to re-creating what you missed. Director Lonny Price and editor Gary Bradley, working during the course of one of the show's final Broadway performances, manage to capture the free-flowing pace of the show, so that each scene seems to spring up like a fresh memory in Bobby's mind -- another glimpse at marriage and romance that might make living alone seem preferable. Or does it? It's that ambiguity that makes "Company" timeless -- and well worth the time spent with it.

If you like Broadway musicals in the key of Sondheim, this episode of Great Performances is a "Do Not Miss".

Mazal tov again, Bruce.

3 comments:

Jeremy Schiffres, City Editor said...

D: We get the New York City PBS station in Kingston. They showed it tonight, and I taped it (having been tipped off by my parents, who were tipped off by Bruce's dad). I plan to watch it in the next day or two. I'm sure the memories of being in "Fiddler on the Roof" with Bruce at BHS in 1978-79 will come flooding back! - J

sybil law said...

Oh I hope I can see it!

Churlita said...

I'm not the biggest fan of musicals, but my daughter is and I watch them with her.