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| re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 10:37 am EDT 08/10/20 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 10:33 am EDT 08/10/20 | |
| In reply to: COMPANY -- original ending/staging - MRH 04:44 pm EDT 08/07/20 | |
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| When things are better, and the third-floor at the Library for the Performing Arts is open again (and I feel comfortable going there), I hope to read the drafts of Company there. I think one of them is a rehearsal script so it should have at least some version of that original last scene. But Sondheim did write about it in Finishing the Hat. Do you have the book? It's on page 196. According to Sondheim, Robert, in despair, goes to a park (rather than his birthday party), where he meets an entirely new group of 13 people, played the actors we've seen all evening but now in different roles. Some of them are single, and some of them are couples. "Determined to take a step forward, he finally makes a gesture of open and needful connection to one of them, a distracted and lonely young woman. The scene was cut because the show was running much too long, and after it was gone, 'Happily Ever After' seemed too much of a 'downer,' as Hal persistently called it." The original staging of the opening number was great. If you can get to TOFT, once it's open again, you can view something very close to the original staging by watching the video of the national tour, shot at the next-to-last performance of the tour, in D.C. in May 1972. Some things were simplified for the tour. The change that most affected the staging of the opening number is that there were no elevators. If memory serves, they simply went up and down stairs when they would have used the elevator. But other than that, and the lack of projections (not really part of the staging, and the projections weren't even visible at the Alvin to people sitting too far over on the sides), I believe it's the original staging. I don't have the energy at the moment to type up any more about the staging, and I don't think the things I remember all these years later would sound especially thrilling. |
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| re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging | |
| Posted by: BillEadie 12:30 pm EDT 08/11/20 | |
| In reply to: re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging - AlanScott 10:33 am EDT 08/10/20 | |
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| Alan, maybe you can clarify about the tour you referred to here. I saw “Company” in Los Angeles, with some of the original cast, and I distinctly remember the elevator (mainly because it set the scene so well). Was the production I saw not part of the tour, or did the tour go forward with a modified set? Thanks for any help you can give, Bill, in San Diego |
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| re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 01:15 pm EDT 08/11/20 | |
| In reply to: re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging - BillEadie 12:30 pm EDT 08/11/20 | |
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| Thank you for supplying that information. I was under the impression that the tour never included the elevator, but it was in the set at the Ahmanson, where the tour started and played for three-and-a-half months, and perhaps also at the Curran, where it played next, for seven weeks. Los Angeles Times critic Dan Sullivan mentioned "girders and naked elevators" in a followup piece on the production at the Ahmanson. After the run at the Curran, for the next few months it played shorter engagements of one to three weeks. It may be that the elevator was dropped then. In January 1972, it switched to a bus-and-truck schedule, playing one- and two-night stands with occasional split weeks, until the D.C. run at the National in May, which was three weeks. But the elevator was not back for that run. After D.C. it had been announced for a run in Chicago, but that was canceled because of poor advance sales. Photos in the NYPL digital gallery suggest a significantly simplified production so I'm guessing they were taken a bit later, even when they show us the tour's original cast. I know that some (perhaps all) were shot in Toronto. |
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| re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging | |
| Posted by: bicoastal 12:17 pm EDT 08/12/20 | |
| In reply to: re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging - AlanScott 01:15 pm EDT 08/11/20 | |
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| I, too, saw the L.A. production and remember the elevator. I also saw Follies at the Shubert in L.A. and, though one rarely wishes one were older, I wish I had been old enough to really grasp the content of the shows then. At least I knew the score for Company going in, but Follies was all new to me so memories are somewhat hazy. | |
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| re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging | |
| Posted by: MRH 10:12 pm EDT 08/10/20 | |
| In reply to: re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging - AlanScott 10:33 am EDT 08/10/20 | |
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| Alan -- Thank YOU so much for this response. I appreciate everyone having fun due to the first responder's mistake -- but I really wanted to know these answers, which no one at all seemed to care about. So thanks for taking it seriously. | |
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| re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging | |
| Posted by: whereismikeyfl 10:13 am EDT 08/11/20 | |
| In reply to: re: COMPANY -- original ending/staging - MRH 10:12 pm EDT 08/10/20 | |
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| We cared (or at least I did). I took you original question seriously--I just did not know the answer. I kept coming back to this thread waiting for some knowledgeable person to show up. And of course it was AlanScott. My suspicion is that all the others kept coming back for the same reason....even if we made some other kind of comment. |
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