Grace, Cha Cha, my MIL, and I all went to see Sondheim’s Company in an extremely small theater.
The performances were terrific, and the pre-show entertainment featured a bat, who did a lovely dance over everyone’s heads, to much exclamatory admiration, before the theater owner ushered him out, to thunderous applause.
Company isn’t my favorite Sondheim,* especially not to see with my MIL,** but it has some great funny and poignant moments, one of which made me peek through my fingers because it was so amazingly, beautifully, painfully awkward and, for a double whammy, featured the friend we went there to see.
Chris, you rocked that scene—the only disappointment was that you didn’t sing a solo.
The other best bits were the ever caustic “Ladies Who Lunch,” which turns out is in my range, so watch out karaoke lovers, and “(Not) Getting Married Today,” which was done to shaking, neurotic perfection by the actress, who at one point crabwalked up a flight of stairs.
Her performance wasn’t recorded, which is a shame, but I found a clip done by Carol Burnett, who is always worth watching. This is part of Putting it Together, a Sondheim revue, so it’s missing some hilarious dialogue, but still:
And for those of you who are wondering, yeah, that’s John Barrowman of Doctor Who and Torchwood fame on the left. The man can sing.
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*I may catch some flack for this, but Into the Woods is my hands-down favorite, even though I was in the pit for fifteen thousand combined rehearsals and performances of it and know the entire thing by heart and should be sick of it. That’s the sign of a good musical. Of course, I only actually saw it twice . . .
**Who felt the same way about seeing her priest in the audience.
Earful of Cider 