Company

April 16, 2008

By Eric Marchese - Orange County Register and Backstage.com

In its time, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's groundbreaking musical series of snapshots of five couples and one swingin' single was slick and hip. In many ways, as Sondheim's prototypical show, it still is. Furth's portrayals and dramatic, comedic, and ironic sketches skewer late-1960s Manhattan's comfortable middle class. Bobby adores random qualities of his various male pals' wives yet is baffled by a string of girlfriends. Susan Marx's cast is, at best, a collection of talented performers whose singing far exceeds their acting skills; and even the singing, with just a few notable exceptions, isn't equally solid. Hampering this, or perhaps aggravating it, is a pace that's just too deliberate in too many places to let the piece breathe in its natural rhythm.

Marx's minimalist staging is conceptual, not literal, in a good way. Ironically, Eric Weigand, as aging bachelor Bobby, is too literal. Like Bobby, Weigand needs to loosen up and express his character's ambiguity toward life. Looking like a long-lost brother to Ben and Casey Affleck, the handsome actor is deadpan and a touch wooden, his face and sickly smile showing that Bobby loves his many married friends but is confounded by them. Weigand's strength is his poignant tenor vocals in "Marry Me a Little," where he shows Bobby's quiet desperation, and a shattering "Being Alive," where we see Bobby's self-loathing and commitment-phobia.

Music director Pro Mojica's attention to detail shines in every number, and bassist Ruben Ramos has an instinctive feel for the score. Like that of many of her castmates, Tara Pitt's singing outstrips her delineation of her character: the neurotic, manic Amy, suffocating in the sweetness of fiancé Paul (an underwhelming Duncan Hutchinson). The difference is that she redeems herself in spades with her virtuosic handling of the ultrafast tongue twister "Getting Married Today," which she rattles off with ease. Maggie Zamora and Anthony Galleran nicely underplay Jenny and David. Janet McGregor sketches Joanne, the acid-tongued, blasé serial divorcée, as boozing to dull her obvious pain, but she needs a lot more of an edge, as does this staging.

Presented by and at Hunger Artists Theatre Company,

701 S. State College Blvd., Suite 699-A, Fullerton.

Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. (Also Thu. 8 p.m. May 1.) Apr. 4-May 4.

(714) 680-6803. www.hungerartists.com.