I was just in a production of COMPANY (playing Peter); I had forgotten that some of the book scenes are quite long and will need a good director to keep them clipping along, otherwise a few of them stop the proceedings cold.
We cut the dialogue at the beginning (the phone messages) and started right with the ladies' ethereal "Bobby"s thereby giving Bobby the first real line, which somehow felt right to me. We also cut some the lines at the end of that first scene going into Harry/Sarah's scene.
The party scene(s) seem right out of a Bunuel movie, with each occurring almost identically but with little changes. I almost wish we'd cut those down too, because it's a whole lot of lines where nobody is really saying anything, or simply saying the same thing over and over again slightly differently.
We reinstated the Peter/Bobby scene with Peter coming onto Bobby, which more or less worked; Peter and Susan get sort of short shrift compared to the other couples, so this helped fill in some gaps in their story.
Glad to hear you have a good orchestra! As many have noted in the past, the strings/brass/flute/triangle parts in "Another Hundred People" give me goosebumps every time!
Enjoy! That opening number is a thrill to sing. And each time we got to "Side...by side...by side...by side by side by side by side by side by side by side etc." adding one more couple to the trench choreography each time was just about the most glorious feeling I've ever had on stage! |
