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In Good 'Company': Innovative Director Lends Fresh Outlook to Sondheim Revival

Posted on: Sunday, 26 March 2006, 15:00 CST

By Michael Grossberg, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Mar. 26--A theatrical approach based on not having the money to mount musicals has made John Doyle a hot director.

And, thanks to the insight of its artistic director, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park snagged the Scottish artist to stage Company, a 1970 Stephen Sondheim musical about love and relationships.

Like the Doyle-led Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, Company relies on the singing actors, instead of an orchestra, to play the instruments -- a concept that the director developed in England.

"We're very lucky to have Doyle," Artistic Director Ed Stern said. "Sweeney is astounding, the best show in New York. John redefines what a musical can be and forces you to see it anew."

The musical instruments, said Doyle, who was interviewed from Cincinnati, "become part of the dramatic language of the characters and reflect the roles."

The 14-member Company ensemble, which never leaves the stage, accompanies every song.

"It looks very simple in the theater, but it's much more complicated than people think," said Doyle, 53. "The whole thing is a kind of balletic dance, with an orchestration that has to move around the stage all the time."

The approach has won over actors as well as audiences.

Tony winners Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris, for example, star in Sweeney Todd.

And the playhouse found other Broadway veterans eager to go to Cincinnati for Company: Raul Esparza (Cabaret, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and Barbara Walsh (Falsettos, Big) play leading roles.

Columbus audiences might remember Esparza as Che in a 1999 tour of Evita at the Ohio Theatre.

He represents a casting coup because of his association with Sondheim: Esparza portrayed the title role in Sunday in the Park With George and Charley in Merrily We Roll Along for the 2002 Sondheim celebration at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

"John is so good at Sondheim because Steve's shows are very emotional and full of sentiment but not at all sentimental," Esparza said. "Sondheim's characters never pity themselves, and Doyle's approach allows that to come through strongly.

"I know Steve likes this way of doing his shows because it reveals different things."

Another cast member echoed such praise.

"John is the real deal. I feel like I've won the lottery to be in this show with him," said Kristin Huffman, a former Miss Ohio who met Doyle during auditions in October for Sweeney Todd.

The central Ohio actress has the role of Sarah, playing the flute and piccolo onstage.

A flute major while at Capital University in Bexley, she learned the saxophone, too, for Company.

"It's different from anything I've ever done, but it's not scary," Huffman said. "John helped us find our way.

"Your instrument becomes your character. The audience takes about 10 minutes to adjust to actors walking around with instruments, but then it becomes natural."

So natural, Esparza said, that "Having the music in the room constantly makes you feel naked.

"You can't really fake it. My hands shake, and they sweat. . . . The instruments don't allow you to hide."

His character, a 30-ish bachelor with a fear of commitment who doesn't express his feelings, is at the center of the story.

To depict him, Esparza doesn't play his instrument, the piano, until the end.

The device is typical of Doyle productions, in which the instruments emphasize the dramatic journeys.

"You have to start with the style and textures of the orchestration," Doyle said, "and find the best voices and moments."

He developed his minimalist style, by necessity, in the mid-1990s at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, England.

"Working at a regional theater that didn't have any money, we wanted to do musicals but couldn't afford an orchestra. So we found actors who could make their own orchestra."

The results encouraged Doyle to keep trying the idea during four years as artistic director of Theatre Royal in York, England.

Among his orchestra-less revivals: Cabaret (unfolding mostly in a cabaret), Pal Joey (set in a nightclub) and Fiddler on the Roof (focusing on Jews in a shared culture).

Last year, many American producers visited England to woo Doyle for a Broadway staging of Sweeney Todd.

Stern, of the Cincinnati troupe, was the only one who mentioned Company.

The playhouse, the 2004 Tony winner for regional theater, has a reputation for strong Sondheim revivals, including Sweeney Todd (1997), A Little Night Music (2000), Gypsy (2001), Pacific Overtures (2003) and, in the fall, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

The deal was clinched when Doyle and Stern discovered their mutual interest in Company.

And so Broadway producers are flocking to Cincinnati, hoping to pick up another hit.

mgrossberg@dispatch.com

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Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

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