January 27 at 7.30pm, 28 at 7.30pm, 29 at 2.30pm
Company, Stephen Sondheim's ground-breaking musical exploration of relationships and identity, comes to Stanford University in January 2023. With a brilliant student cast and full orchestra, this production promises to be one of the Department of Music's best.
Full of magnificent music as well as deliberate ambiguity, Company is a show that refuses to answer the questions it raises. It challenges societal and cultural assumptions and is purposely thought-provoking. That equivocation is the most important reason to perform Company in 2023, a time when uncertainty and anxiety about the future delineate and define all of our lives.
In 1970 Stephen Sondheim's musical Company premiered on Broadway. Today many say that it is their favorite show. Yet it has been continually praised and criticized for nearly every element of the show, including its ground-breaking structure. In order to make sense of some of the confusion, let's look at Sondheim's own comments:
"Company's about a single moment in a man's life-maybe 3 seconds-in which something snaps inside of his head and he reviews his life to that moment. The business of exploding a moment like that; the business of a group of memories forming your story as opposed to a plot..."
This production takes as its primary motivating factor the fear of emotional intimacy and reluctance to give up personal identity when in a relationship, not only for the main character Robert but for all the characters.
Full of hit tunes and magnificent music as well as uncertainty and ambiguity, Company is a show that refuses to answer the questions it raises, both for the characters and for its audience. It challenges societal and cultural assumptions and is purposely thought-provoking. That equivocation is the most important reason to perform Company in 2023, a time when uncertainty and anxiety about the future delineate and define all of our lives.
$28, seniors $23, students $18.