Company v.2

A recent production of Company inspired me to revise this comic slightly. The original was in pencil and marker. The revised was drawn with digital pen, keeping the same models but cleaning them up and giving Elaine Stritch more prominence (never a bad thing!).

Into the Light

“Science without data will not get you from alpha to beta.”

Legends say Dean Jones fled Company in 1970 due to hostile audiences and personal crisis. He returned to Broadway in 1986 for the 6 performance flop Into the Light. It’s possible to write a successful musical about the subject of faith but Into the Light was not that show. Critics found much to snark about and the show that was quickly dubbed Jesus Christ Tablecloth. 

Company

Larry Kert: Who do you have to f**k to get out of Company?  

Stephen Sondheim: The same people you f**ked to get in it. Happy birthday, Larry.

Dean Jones: I went out there in Boston and sang this song ‘Happily Ever After’ and I could feel the audience asking me, ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ I saw their eyes widen as they asked, ‘Why do you hate us?’”

Company gave Elaine Stritch her signature song, frightened off its first leading man, and kicked off Sondheim’s most prolific decade.

Ethan Mordden: No show was as misunderstood as Company. This is odd, because its theme is very clearly stated: the absolute intimacy of marriage is very difficult but very necessary…. Sondheim spend the 1970s producing five consecutive masterpieces… yet was, at that time but not after, the most contested major talent in the musical’s history…. Rodger’s and Hammerstein were accepted masters at that time and after- taken, even, for granted. Sondheim was argued.

*** Update 7/18/2016

A recent production of Company inspired me to revise this comic slightly. The original was in pencil and marker. The revised was drawn with digital pen, keeping the same models but cleaning them up and giving Elaine Stritch more prominence (never a bad thing!).