A gender-switch production of Company is a triumph.
I CONFESS. I was sceptical when I heard that Company, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, was to be recast with a female lead. I have fond memories of the show on Broadway in 1970, when it struck me as a daringly brilliant musical about the dilemma of a 35-year-old unattached male. What, I wondered, could be gained by turning Robert into Bobbie?
Having now seen Marianne Elliott’s version, starring Rosalie Craig, at the Gielgud, I am entirely won over. This is, quite simply, the best musical in London.
The gender switch makes sense in myriad ways. The plight of a single woman, ever aware of the ticking biological clock, seems more intense than that of a man. Where Robert emerged as a cold fish, Miss Craig makes Bobbie a vibrant personality who would happily settle for a husband if only she could find the right man.
Bobbie still views her married friends with an amused curiosity,but there’s a crucial moment in which Miss Craig encounters three potential life partners: when the one she most fancies, subtly played by Matthew Seadon-Young, reveals that he’s leaving New York to get married, you see Miss Craig’s expressive features quiver with disappointment.
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