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Issued 2007
Running time: 60 minutes
18 Tracks 
Packaged with notes, synopsis, lyrics and photos of the show and the recording session
PS Classics / Nonesuch 106876-2
List Price $20.98

It must be pointed out that director John Doyle received last year's Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical for that production of Sweeney Todd of which we were so very critical. It certainly was a "love it or hate it" proposition, and many loved it. When the revival cast recording of Sweeney Todd was released, we commented that it captured most of what was good in the show and avoided most of the problems. This was because the strengths of that production were in the musical numbers, while the weaknesses were concentrated in the spoken scenes which suffered from weak storytelling. The opposite was the case with Company. Doyle's direction brought the spoken scenes into focus effectively but sacrificed some of the musical values of the score to the actors-as-musicians concept. Thus, this recording seems to capture most of the faults in the production without having the benefit of all of its strengths.

Still, there are some surprising musical pleasures here including some nifty flute work in the title song. Not so surprising, but certainly a pleasure, is the recording of Esparza's literally stunning performance as Robert. Barbara Walsh's work as the stinger swigging Joanne comes across much stronger and sharper in the recording than it did on stage. Record producer Tommy Karasker has even included one of those spoken dialogue scenes so you can have some appreciation for the clarity of Doyle's direction and the strength of Esparza's acting. "You have a good third husband, Joanne" runs about three minutes with only about twenty-five seconds of music. The rest provides a glimpse into the way the play plays out. You may not want to listen to that track very often but it certainly adds to your understanding of what this show is like in performance.

Overall, however, the disc makes something of the case for those who would rather have musicians play the music than have actors double on instruments that aren't their primary talent. The hurried reed work in "You Could Drive A Person Crazy" is most distracting and there is an unaccountable "thump, thump" behind the vocal on "Barcelona" which some say is the ill-recorded base notes or even fret noise on the accompanying guitar. The new orchestrations by Mary-Mitchell Campbell for the actor-musicians simply brook no comparison with the original charts by Jonathan Tunick. This disc is most likely to impress those who haven't come to know the original Broadway cast recording that is still available or those who, knowing that recording, nonetheless want a record of Esparza's performance.