Foote in The Door is in good with Company
Foote in The Door is an Edmonton based performance collective. They are graduates of the Citadel’s Foote Theatre School (and other groups who train young people in musical theatre). Getting tired of waiting for our major companies to phone with offers of jobs, they have banded together, in the best Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney tradition, to rent a hall and put on a show. They’ve been together a number of years now and have presented entertaining versions of a number of Broadway shows including Little Women and the Rogers and Hammerstein’s classic, Carousel.
In their current production, Company, they take on the work of another Broadway master, Stephen Sondheim. The production proves that it’s a good match.
After a rather lethargic opening, the show springs to life with Sondheim’s lively introduction of the residents of a Manhattan apartment building. “Phone rings, door chimes, in comes company! No strings, good time, room hums, company!” is sung by a group of residents. The denizens are mostly full of regrets – living lonely, unrealized existences vicariously observing the building’s bachelor-about-town, Bobby (Russ Farmer).
It’s Bobby’s 35th birthday and he’s beginning to have doubts about his lifestyle. Something of a ladies man, he can’t commit to any of them. Sondheim being Sondheim, the musical is not in chronological order but composed of short vignettes – mostly Bobby reacting with the other residents. They feed him, offer him friendship, unending advice and birthday cakes. One even purringly suggests that if he’s looking for earthy delights he should amble down the hall and sample her wares.
Overall this production manages to overcome some intonation problems, the occasional hardening of tone in upper registers and energy that sometimes flags to provide an evening of solid entertainment. There are a number of moments when it all comes together and delivers a jolt of pure electric energy. Three ace performers, all Bobby’s conquests, (Alyssa Paterson/Victoria Suen/Emily Smith) light up the stage with an exuberant rendition of “You Could Drive a Person Crazy.”
Ruth Wong-Miller is hilarious in a breathless rapid-fire patter song “Getting Married Today.” She’s Amy – who is spazzing out on her wedding day trying to call the whole thing off – and no one is paying her any attention.
Bobby finds himself seducing a dumb-as-a bedpost but willing as a mare in heat stewardess, April (Suen again) in the comic song, “Barcelona.” She has to catch a flight to Spain and his half-hearted attempts to get her to return to bed turn to horror when he realizes she is actually going to do it.
Karin Thomas tears a strip off that galvanizing salvo of sardonic self-disgust “The Ladies Who Lunch” and the performer manages to pull the venomous song’s usual fangs to allow us to see the hurting lady behind all those acerbic words.
Much of the production’s success is due to Farmer’s Bobby. The actor is laid back and seems to get a great deal of pleasure whimsically watching the other residents watching him. His Bobby is not a bad person, superficial perhaps and lacking feeling, but the actor has a strong stage presence and gives his character a likeability. He gets the big song “Being Alive” at the end of the show. The song has Bobby finally breaking out of his neutral bubble and joining the human race. Perhaps with a little more juice, it could have become an anthem of self-awareness.
Adam Kuss’s choreography is a hoot throughout. His lively dances invoke the buoyancy and bubble of the 1970’s. The production numbers are quite spectacular and notable for the company’s precise and practiced delivery. There is one vaudeville type number, featuring a killer trio of female tap dancers, that blossoms into a high spirited full-company kick line that had the audience burst into applause.
Joy van de Ligt’s eleven-piece band, visible on stage all the way through, is excellent.
Director Morgan Kunitz’s long experience in putting together large musicals is obvious throughout.
This production of Company is a diverting and quite engaging production of Stephen Sondheim’s seminal work from a group of talented young performers.
Company, a production of Foote in The Door Productions, plays in L’UniTheatre at La Cite Francophone through April 28. Purchase tickets HERE.
