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One Musical Where the Leading Man Should Not Shine

Why Cabrillo Music Theatre’s Company is perfection

By Bob Verini

Alxander Jon leads the enesmble of Company. (Photo by Ed Krieger)

For one more weekend, through Sunday Feb. 8, there’s an absolutely smashing revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s 1970 Company in town. If you detect a note of surprise in that announcement, no offense is meant to the Cabrillo Music Theatre, which presents it, and especially not to Nick DeGruccio, who does a skillful, sophisticated job mounting the musical theater perennial. It’s just that this is probably the sixth or seventh Company I’ve seen, and not only is it far and away the most accomplished, it also brings freshness and richness to a musical I feared had passed its sell-through date.

There’s been some criticism of the performance of Alxander Jon in the central role of Robert. I am not surprised: The character of the just-turned-35 bachelor, moved to review his life choices as he interacts with the five married couples who are his closest friends, is one of the trickiest roles in modern musicals. Nonetheless, Jon’s performance is well-crafted from first to last and his casting is a masterstroke. Here’s why:

Company, in the person of Robert, is about people who exist only in the shadow, or mirror, of others. We all know them and many of us are them: attractive, reasonably successful, seemingly self-sufficient types about whom there seems to be no much there — there past the surface. They make no splash at parties. floating in and out without a ripple. They’re present at work, but little more than present; they’re the co-workers whose names we keep forgetting, if we ever knew them at all. Yet these ciphers do have their moments: They blossom whenever they’re in the presence –- the company -– of their more flamboyant or colorful, or simply sharply-determined acquaintances.

Librettist George Furth’s Robert is a stunningly original creation, in that he’s an average Joe placed at the center of a huge Broadway musical. How often does that happen? Talk about average, the show never even spells out what he does for a living, a clearly deliberate choice. By agreed-upon consensus of him and his pals, Robert is defined solely by his roles vis a vis his “group”: my best friend. Our babysitter. Her confidante. The kids’ uncle. My flirting partner. The extra man when I need him for my formal dinners. But who is Robert?

That the question even needs to be asked, is the dramatic point of this extraordinarily rich musical play, which for years has been saddled with the useless sobriquet of “concept musical.” You know what? Every musical has a concept. Company is an impressionistic musical. Instead of hanging its events on a linear story, it gives us spot checks on a variety of vivid personalities who orbit Robert. In the course of those visits, we and he –- and in the play’s final moments, the other personalities themselves — recognize the importance of detaching oneself from other people’s existence in order to forge an identity of one’s own, as scary a prospect as that generally is.

Michael Andrew Baker, Alxander Jon and Ellissa Wagner (Photo by Ed Krieger)

The director’s job is extremely delicate here. Not only must he cast five couples embodying strong, immediately identifiable character traits – as well as three striking young women who pop into the protagonist’s life at odd times – but Robert himself is difficult to capture. He must be attractive and virile in a metrosexual way (i.e. plausibly intriguing to a wide variety of people); he must exude an air of confidence and business success; he must have great pipes (this is Sondheim after all); and above all, he must capture our interest and attention without ever overshadowing his entourage. If Robert ever becomes too charismatic, too conventionally showbiz, we lose the central attribute that dominates the story: his availability as a blank slate to those – “those good and crazy people, my friends” – who want to exploit him. In short, when Company becomes a star vehicle, it suffers irreparable damage, because Robert’s not a star, he’s a shape-shifter.

The two original Bobbys in 1970 were perfectly chosen. Dean Jones practically defined the era’s average guy vibe, and for all Larry Kert’s Broadway experience you could still imagine him lost in a crowd. But the tradition of avoiding showbiz panache was lost after the first production. The role is always cast with a conventionally strong leading man — little theaters reeling in their closest equivalent to John Raitt or Matthew Morrison, and that was always a bum steer.

Raul Esparza’s Robert, with Elizabeth Stanley, in the 2006 Broadway Revival of Company (NY Times)

But the problem wasn’t confined to little theaters. Star Company casting was quite problematic in the 2006 Broadway revival, and in a 2011 staged and televised concert. Raul Esparza and Neil Patrick Harris, respectively, were stars with a capital — showbiz phenomena who could not in their wildest dreams be convincing as average Joes. Fine actors, sure, and they can belt “Being Alive” in hoary old showbiz diva style. But asking either of these larger-than-life talents to sit on the sidelines, not to take focus, and be whatever the other characters want them to be, was and is not possible. With these charismatic stage stars as Robert, the question of why Robert isn’t married became an absurdity, and worse, the couples served no function except as wacky foils in comedy sketches.

Alexander Jon as Robert, however, is perfect casting. He sings well, looks and behaves both masculine and witty, and commands the stage as a protagonist should. But DeGruccio has recognized that Jon, precisely because he is not a conventional leading man but a character actor, is perfectly suited to portray a man whose features have yet to be filled in. He’s an average guy with the chops to carry a show on his back.

Jon is also a first-rate listener, and because his concentration on the others in his scenes is total, he garners the attention the role requires. We watch and enjoy the long-marrieds who slug it out as a substitute for food and booze (Elissa Wagner and Michael Andrew Baker), or the engaged youngsters who aren’t sure they love each other enough (Shelly Regner and Nick Tubbs). But we keep looking over to observe their impact on Robert. And that’s exactly as it should be.

Shelley Regner and Alxander Jon at Cerritos Musical Theatre (Photo by Ed Krieger)

It’s a brilliant choice, incidentally, to begin the “Side By Side” number – in which the couples celebrate Robert’s roles in their lives – with his snorting cocaine in his apartment. The drug permits his wild side to elbow away the normally sedate, polite gentleman. His high makes him suddenly, savagely aware of his friends’ maneuvers, and the number becomes an opportunity for frantic self-realization, instead of the mere vaudeville turn with which Act 2 usually opens.

The numbers throughout are genuinely acted, not just sung. Regner’s “Getting Married Today” is a triumph not just of breath control but of actor intelligence – her hysteria has a beginning, middle, and end, a marvelous little one-act play in itself. Chelsea Emma Franko, the show’s touch of Bohemia as girlfriend Marta, personalizes “Another Hundred People” as an anthem to lost hopes, just as Tracy Lore turns “The Ladies Who Lunch” into a painful exercise in self-loathing. (It’s usually sung as if the boozy Joanne is commenting on the superficiality of others; Lore makes it clear the lady is goring her own ox.)

Choreographer Cate Caplin, in another dicey assignment, brings expressive dance to the show without compromising its roles’ essentially naturalistic character. The period remains Manhattan in the 1970s, which DeGruccio and his designers respect without hitting us over the head with cheesy nostalgia. And whether it’s Cassie Nickols’ musical direction or sound designer Jonathan Burke’s doing (probably a bit of both), the vast majority of Sondheim’s devilishly clever lyrics hit the ear crystal-clear. How often does that happen?

After my visit to Cabrillo I knew more about Company, and liked it more, than ever. I am thrilled, even relieved, to have seen it done right once more, and I urge theatergoers to take the opportunity to do likewise in the production’s last hurrahs.

Cabrillo Music Theatre, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks; Thurs., 7:30 p.m.; Fri-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through Feb. 8. www.cabrillomusictheatre.com.