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Russ Farmer as Bobby and Emily Smith as Marta. Photo credit Nanc Price.

In good Company

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Russ Farmer as Bobby, Emily Smith as Marta.  Photo credits Nanc Price.

Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical Company shows us a group of friends in their 30s, five married couples and the single guy, Bobby (Russ Farmer in the current Foote in the Door production).

In a series of gentle vignettes, we see glimpses of each couple’s relationship and challenges.  We see that Bobby is friends with everybody, good company, as he spends time with each couple.  Harry and Sarah (Stefan Rumak and Melanie Lafleur) talk to Bobby as a way of complaining about each other’s habits (his drinking, her eating sweets).  He’s best man for Paul and Amy’s (Alan Cabral and Ruth Wong-Miller) wedding – or he would be, if they agree to get married.  Joanne (Kärin Thomas) enjoys flirting with Bobby and telling him about her past husbands while devoted present husband Larry (Joe Garreck) looks on.  Susan and Peter (Athena Gordon and Trevor J.) explain to Bobby that being divorced makes their marriage work.  Bobby smokes weed with David and Jenny (Simon Yau and Kara Little).  All of them fuss at Bobby about not being married and try to find out why he’s not married – and Bobby doesn’t seem to know either.

We also see Bobby with three love interests, naive flight attendant April (Victoria Suen, whom I last saw in Lizzie), Kathy, who’s moving away but says she would have liked to marry him (Alyssa Paterson), and Marta (Emily Smith), one of my favourite characters, who is wholeheartedly in love with New York City and with life.

And I should mention that it was fun to spot assistant director Gerald Mason playing bartender and what seemed to be a nightclub full of show orchestra members and assistant stage managers dancing in the dark.

It wasn’t the plot-heavy kind of production full of big character journeys and closure, but rather was full of lovely examples of longterm love and friendship and of people accepting who they are and being comfortable.  My favourite part was “Getting Married Today” in which Ruth Wong-Miller’s character has hilarious physical and emotional range in a wedding dress.  I also enjoyed “Side by Side by Side”, which was a great showcase of choreographer Adam Kuss’s contributions, and Bobby’s final solo “Being Alive”.  There are also many other touching and/or delightful moments which I won’t tell you about so you can discover them for yourself, with just one hint:  Trevor J. lets his hair down.

Russ Farmer as Bobby. Photo credit Nanc Price.
Ruth Wong-Miller as Amy in Company. Photo credit Nanc Price.

I admired how Morgan Kunitz’ direction integrated everyday smartphone use into a script from 1970 without looking anachronistic.

Company is playing at L’UniThéâtre until April 28th.  And if you haven’t been to the big auditorium at La Cité yet this season, you will be pleasantly surprised by the new audience seating, which is much more comfortable than the previous seats.

Fiddler on the Roof

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The Holy Trinity Players just finished a brief run of the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof, and were close to sold out.  They’re already planning to remount the show for Edmonton Fringe 2015, so you’ll have a few more chances to see this production if you missed it this weekend.  The play was directed by Morgan Kunitz with Darlene Kunitz as musical director.

Fiddler on the Roof, as you probably know, is the story of the poor dairyman Tevye in a small Jewish village in Tsarist Russia at some time period probably just before the revolution.  He and his wife Golde (Cindy Gaffney) have five daughters, some of them of marrying age but without dowries, so the parents depend on the matchmaker Yente (Gail Boutilier).  However, the younger generation makes their own choices, defying arranged-marriage traditions bit by bit (a love match!  worse, a love match with a Communist who gets sent to Siberia!  even worse, a love match with a Russian Christian and an elopement to be married by a priest!)

in this production the demanding part of Tevye is played by local lawyer Andrew Hladyshevsky.  I was especially impressed by how he made the very familiar material seem fresh and original, with delight and indignation arising equally naturally on his expressive face.  There’s a cast of about 30 people, managed smoothly on a moderately-sized stage at the front of the church sanctuary.  The sanctuary space provided for effective staging of scenes such as many households chanting the Sabbath blessings and lighting candles along all the aisles, a wedding procession up the centre aisle, a secret Christian wedding at the altar at the far (upstage) end of the sanctuary, and the exile/emigration down the aisle at the end.