TV Review : ‘Played in the USA’ a Fascinating Oddity

A little known D.A. Pennebaker film of the marathon recording for the classic Broadway cast album “Company” launches a promising new series of historic musical documentaries called “Played in the USA” (at 7 and 10 p.m. Sunday on cable’s Learning Channel).

Tied up by copyright litigation for the last 20 years, the film is a hand-held cinema verite study of the grime, tensions and triumphs of the the 18-hour “Company” recording session in New York in 1970. Composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim and the show’s stars, among them Dean Jones, Donna McKechnie, Barbara Barrie and Elaine Stritch, are continually seen in close-ups that zoom in so tightly that the film becomes a study in faces.

They all look so young and eager that the film is a fascinating oddity, whether you’re acquainted with the Harold Prince-Sondheim “Company” or not. (An ambitious and different musical for its time, the show was not a great hit at first because audiences weren’t used to the non-linear musical book and the intricate score.)

What’s refreshing is that Pennebaker offers no off-screen narrative track, no interviews, no exposition. Instead his camera darts around the sweat and agony of a studio session like a home movie.

Hosted by Martin Sheen, the series will continue for 13 weeks, featuring shorts by independent filmmakers on such figures as Eartha Kitt, B.B. King, Charles Mingus, Pete Seeger and Papa John Creach.