Weekend Reviews : Stage : Civic Light Opera Turns Long Beach Into a ‘Company’ Town Fit for Sondheim

Few shows have had the dubious honor of changing the face of the American musical as profoundly and irreversibly as the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth “Company” did in 1970 and then fading into a kind of cultural limbo.

After its enormous initial impact, the non-book-driven, multilevel, multilayered social study known as “Company” withdrew into genteel obscurity. It has been familiarly revered in absentia , played on albums, written about, televised in rehearsal, revived in concert (as recently as this year) and staged mostly in remote outposts where it is less risky to test the durability of the ‘70s mentality that spawned it.

So when Long Beach Civic Light Opera producer Barry Brown announced plans to mount a full-scale production, after the splendid benefit concert of the show that he put together in January with the original Broadway cast, the question was: But will it play ?

The answer is it does, as demonstrated at Saturday’s opening at the Long Beach Convention Center’s Terrace Theatre. This is partly because the complexity of Sondheim’s music and lyrics (if not the social climate) remains so current.

The fact is that we have no trouble accepting the show as a period piece. Its reach into a pre-AIDS time when smoking grass, divorce and one-night stands were a lot more popular than marriage--and its genuine questions about the validity of all that--still resonate loudly in the present. They may be once-removed but they’re not old.

The production itself is a lovingly assembled, somewhat by-the-book revival, respectable if not electrifying. It has a solid company of singer-actors headed by a tender Patrick Cassidy as bachelor Bobby.

And it has its high points--among them Jennifer Allen as kooky Marta belting “Another Hundred People”; Wanda Richert-Preston stunning in Kathy’s acrobatic “Tick-Tock” dance solo (Linda Goodrich is the choreographer); Veanne Cox’s hyperkinetic “Getting Married Today”; and a wry Carol Burnett as cool, sometimes cruel, drop-dead Joanne singing that showstopper of them all, “The Ladies Who Lunch.”

That is the good news.

Less good are some of the conscious and unconscious choices made. On a minor plane, scenic designer Bradley Kaye uses pale purple a lot as a background color--not the most serendipitous selection.

Director Glenn Casale bases his staging on Harold Prince’s brilliant original construct. A little too deferentially. His own direction lacks a little in pace and more in passion. (No revival of “Company” in memory has strayed far from Prince’s concept, though one day it might be fun to try.)

The worst news in Long Beach, however, is the sound, the sound, the sound. The Terrace Theatre has never been known for great acoustics, but what came from the stage on Saturday was like chalk on a board. The system did not spit so much as screech, with consummate unfairness to the singers.

This major hurdle notwithstanding, Cassidy is an appealing Bobby--light on his feet, graceful when he dances, warm when he sings and always slightly and sweetly dazed by the crazy couples around him.

But “Company,” of course, is only peripherally about Bobby. It’s about all those others, and all of us, and, even when less than perfect, it holds that biting, sorry-grateful mirror steadily up to nature.

* “Company,” Terrace Theatre, Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Oct. 17. $14-$38; (310) 432-7926, (714) 826-9371, (310) 365-3500, (714) 740-2000. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes. Patrick Cassidy: Bobby

Deborah Van Valkenburgh: Sarah

Lenny Wolfe: Harry

Karen Culliver: Susan

Dean Butler: Peter

Jan Pessano: Jenny

Matt Landers: David

Veanne Cox: Amy

Robert Yacko: Paul

Carol Burnett: Joanne

John Kenton Shull; Larry

Jennifer Allen: Marta

Wanda Richert-Preston: Kathy

Christina Saffran: April

Sheryl Benorden, Diane Kelber, Debbie Prutsman, Meredith Woodson The Vocal Minority

A revival of the 1970 musical. Music and lyrics Stephen Sondheim. Book George Furth. Producer Barry Brown. Associate producer Don Hill. Director Glenn Casale. Musical director John McDaniel. Choreographer Linda Goodrich. Sets Bradley Kaye. Lights Tom Ruzika. Costumes Garland Riddle. Hair-makeup Elena Breckenridge. Sound Jon Gottlieb, Philip G. Allen. Prop design Deborah J. Dennis. Production stage manager Susan Slagle. Stage Manager Sandy Cleary.