Last week at Lincoln Center the phones rang, the doors chimed and in came a star-studded Company staged reading whose cast was headlined by Neil Patrick Harris as the bachelor Bobby, whose examinations of marriage center the Stephen Sondheim classic. And it wasn't just Harris up there, stage and screen bold-faced names like Patti LuPone, Stephen Colbert, Christina Hendricks, Martha Plimpton, Anika Noni Rose and Jon Cryer were hoofing it too. The show ran for only four sold-out (and not cheap!) performances, but fret not poor theater fans. If you still desperately want to see Hendricks in her skivvies deciding to go to Barcelona or not (or a topless NPH trying to keep her in town), LuPone toasting the "Ladies Who Lunch," or Colbert and Plimpton as a mock-karate-fighting couple, you've got nothing to worry about. All four productions of the show were filmed and will now be combined into one concert film coming to theaters June 15.
But how was the show? Not bad, we thought. Director Lonny Price staged the reading within an inch of its life (a feat in and of itself considering rehearsals took place on two coasts) and the actors certainly gave it their all. Though some of the singers weren't quite of the caliber we were hoping for—Anika Noni Rose makes a wonderful Marta but appeared to have trouble cutting loose in the New York anthem "Another Hundred People"—the music and book alone are hard to mess up.
Neil Patrick Harris made for a less cold and robotic Bobby than Raul Esparza, who tackled the role in the last revival, and Christina Hendricks turned in a strong performance as April, the daffy PanAm stewardess (she's got the hand motions down pat). Stephen Colbert turns out to have a nice, if not amazing voice, when he turns off the "Stephen Colbert" personality and Martha Plimpton is, as always, charming. As for Patti LuPone? One of the great Broadway divas, LuPone puts in exactly the strong performance as Joanne you might expect—but if you were hoping for her to steal the Ladies Who Lunch out from under Elaine Strich the way she took Mama Rose from Ethel Merman (not to mention Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly and Bernadette Peters) in the last revival of Gypsy, you are going to be disappointed.
So, did the world really need another Company revival so soon after the last one? Probably not. But, to quote the show, "Jesus Christ was it fun."
Wait, did you just read all of that just so you could get to the part about the stars in their underwear? Sigh, we won't let you down. You can find those pictures right here. And while you wait for June to come around, here's a video of Colbert, Plimpton and co. rehearsing:
