Company
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; Book by George Furth
Directed by Stephanie Stone
Theater Works
The Lakes Club Banquet Center, Sun City
(623) 815-7930
November 5th - 21st, 2004
$24.00

Once, there was a barn. In it was mounted some very impressive theatre. Then came a strip mall. Still more impressive theatre was mounted there. Now, there’s a ballroom in a retirement community. The new regime that has taken over Theater Works is intent on being the main company of the planned Peoria Performing Arts Center. Based on their current work, they seem contented to coast by on the strength of their past works, and have done as much as they can to isolate themselves from the valley’s theatre community with choices that include removal from the admittedly flawed ariZoni process, a return to rehearsing in their far west valley community to the exclusion of centrally located actors who would like to perform there, and a corporate attitude toward theatre that has driven artists from their ranks and left critics wondering at their lack of understanding of theatre protocols. I’m saddened by this. I proudly worked for this company and several artists who have gone on to professional careers. I met my future wife while performing there. And now, on a chilly November evening during the second weekend of their run of the difficult and urbane Stephen Sondheim tuner Company, I literally ran screaming from the theatre at intermission, followed closely by my equally disgusted wife and my mother, who dropped twenty four dollars for one of the worst productions of a musical I’ve seen in years.

The first act we suffered through was amateurish enough to make us gasp in our seats as we witnessed off-tune singing; non-acting; direction (Stephanie Stone) that appears haphazard; rudimentary, self-congratulatory, and clueless choreography (Tim Waters); design elements (all by John Ashford) that work against the piece every step of the way; and technical problems with microphone, lighting, and Christie McKibben’s orchestra that disrupted the flow and presentation of this terrible production. This is the fourth time in ten seasons that I have left a show at intermission. This will be the second time that I will stop critiquing a company until I can confirm they are interested in offering theatre of any quality.

I recognize that it is easy for critics to fall into the trap of praising and condemning with grand words, but I cannot exaggerate the depths to which this production burrows. In the middle of the evening is Jesse Berger as eternal bachelor Bobby. Poor Berger has a strong voice and good stage presence, but he is left to fend for himself amongst a cast of orators, and with nothing to react to, his character flattens. Save for one other, the cast of the evening is uniformly awful. Clarisa Hernandez as Bobby’s girlfriend Marta is perky, but rushes through her lines and adds trills to her singing of “Another Hundred People” to cover for the fact that she can’t sustain notes on key. Toni Aruta’s Susan, Ann Marie Sun’s April, and E. Jay Winzeler’s Larry all perform their lines with generic or no emotions. Though I didn’t get to see her big moment, what little I saw of Lori Winzeler’s performance of the iconic Joanne showed that she was both too young and unable to produce the necessary blowzy attitude crucial to her role.

Stone’s creation is not easy to peg for period. Originally set in 1971, this production utilizes phones and mutton chops from the 70s, answering machines from the 80s, and contemporary ties. Her idea of blocking is to bunch people together at some points, have them stride purposefully across the stage at others, and rarely give recognizable reasons for these choices. Her and Ashford’s insistence on placing characters in unlit areas when their reactions are crucial to the scene is unconscionable. Waters’ choreography can be summed up with the stupidly tossed-in image of having Bobby’s three girlfriends (Sun, Hernandez, and Tina Dickens) assume the trademark Charlie’s Angels pose during the Andrews Sister’s inspired “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” and the mystifying head bobbing during “The Little Things You Do Together."

Ashford’s set is substandard. The back wall is a recreation of a fanciful New York skyline that looks like it has been created with white duct tape. The three playing spaces look like high school sets, and the choice to hold up their frame with bars between each led to a lot of shadows on faces we’re supposed to see. His lighting is riddled with holes that actors seemed determined to fall into. Microphone problems left characters moving their mouths in vain during entire scenes. Most cues seemed to be a beat or two off their intended mark. McKibben’s four-piece orchestra was prone to sour notes.

At the end of the first act, after I had been persuaded by my companions not to leave while the show was still in progress, the stage suddenly lit up. Sara Bernstein plays the frenetically crazed bride-to-be Amy with the life it is meant to have. She attempted to resuscitate a show that had coded after the second number. It was a grand moment balanced by the worst performance of the evening by Antoine (John) Alldredge as her groom Paul. Where she aced her difficult lyrics in the song “Not Getting Married,” Alldredge’s singing swung wildly through the spectrum of keys, few of them correct. As Bernstein made laugh lines into zingers, Alldredge lobbed grapefruit to the audience in a monotone that appeared drug-induced. That was all I could stand.

And now, I bid a sad so long to a company I once respected. I realize that after a scathing review like this, the art-unconscious bottom liners of their administration who insisted after my last bad review that I not be allowed back until someone in the community advised them against doing that would never allow me to return. I’m sorry to have it end like this. Somewhere, David Wo must be wondering how his company has come to this.