Opening on Broadway in 1970, Stephen Sondheim’s Company has remained in the musical theatre zeitgeist for its reflections on life, love, and, of course, its sharp wit and memorable songs. The show follows Bobby, a 35-year-old man who reflects on his own life and relationship with love through interactions with his married friends and girlfriends. In recent years, productions have reimagined the role by gender-swapping Bobby, while others have featured casts accompanying themselves with instruments on stage. In WAAPA’s latest rendition, there are two Bobbys. Third-year Musical Theatre students Josh Condon and Cooper Williams will alternate performances, offering not only audiences but also their fellow cast members a different take on the character each night. I sat down with Josh and Cooper to learn about their individual approaches to the same role ahead of opening night.
Holly: What was your familiarity like with Company and Sondheim before you discovered this would be the show you’d be working on?
Josh: For music theatre students, Company and Sondheim’s works give students so much to sink their teeth into. It’s the “actor’s musical”.
Cooper: I’ve probably watched all the productions that are available. The 2006 one with New York Phil, Ariana DeBose and Neil Patrick Harris is probably one of my favourites because it had really cool people that I look up to onstage.
Holly: You’re both playing the role of Bobby and will alternate between performances. Tell me about the logistics of that?
Cooper: As far as I know, they’ve never done a double casting before at WAAPA. I think it’s a really enjoyable way of doing it because we are such different people and performers. Josh is an incredible comedy actor. I love watching him play comedy so straight and dry. I’m a physical actor, and clowning and improv are something that I’ve come from. I think we influence and balance each other in a nice way. I’m learning so much watching Josh, as well as from our director Sonya Suares.
Josh: If you came to see both shows, you’d probably get a very different experience. For the rest of the cast, having a different actor every other night makes it fresh.
Company. Kushinka Jayewardene, Cooper Williams Abby Dickson,Josh Condon,Isabella Rath. Photo Kathy Wheatley
Holly: Tell me about who Bobby is and how you each interpret him. How do you approach playing him?
Josh: I think the main idea and the function of the script is that he’s like the “every man” you can see yourself in because everything in the story happens to Bobby. The audience sees the story through his lens. It’s really interesting exploring these ideas in real time and being extremely genuine, but also charismatic and charming. You can really imagine him as someone in New York in the 70s, a suave man. It’s interesting dissecting the idea of marriage, which the whole show is about. He’s a syphon for all the other characters to shine.
Cooper: I’m obsessed with sitcoms. He’s got all these different aspects of an every man in a sitcom. You then have to place him into a real situation where he’s reflecting upon his life because the musical happens in his head, but then it’s all real. There are so many layers, and he reminds me of people in my own life.
Holly: What do you find most challenging about this role?
Josh: I think the tumble dryer of it all and we’re swept up in it. Sometimes the music is not super happy, it’s creepy, it’s a bit mysterious and very existential. You can get spun into that and think, “Whoa, where am I? How do I feel right now?” Trying to ground yourself is challenging.
Cooper: We only leave the stage once. As we’re learning the show, you want to be thinking one step ahead, but if you do that you’re losing a piece of the puzzle. If you miss one of those moments, you go into the next scene and you feel like you’re missing something a little bit.
Kushinka Jayewardene, Isabella Rath, Cooper Williams, Abby Dickson. Photo Kathy Wheatley
Holly: On the flip side, what do you find most rewarding about the show?
Cooper: I really love when we get to do one of my favourite songs, Marry Me a Little. It’s a song of self-deception. Bobby is going for a paradise that’s not real, in which you only need to love someone as much as you need to and that’s a valid relationship.
Josh: For me, doing Being Alive is pretty amazing. It’s one of those iconic songs in the theatre canon that everyone knows. The culmination of the show, the epiphany moment, it’s such an experience. You’re surrounded by 12 other people on stage and they’re all staring at you while you’re experiencing this moment. It’s hard not to feel invigorated by that.
Holly: How is it sharing rehearsals? What are the logistics of that?
Josh: In the beginning it was a communication between us. We’d say, “Do you want to take this?” It’s been a creation between both of us, we’re building it together. We’re not blurring it into one because it’s not the same performance, but it is a creation between both of us.
Holly: How has your WAAPA journey prepared you for this?
Cooper: In WAAPA you just do everything, a little bit of everything. You get used to doing stuff and putting it out, then you refine. You get used to picking up things and putting them down, you don’t get attached to things. It can be changed, moulded and made better. We are still evolving in constant motion.
Josh: I think after three years of piecing things together, you get a sense of what you’re really good at and what challenges you, what you need to put more effort and time into. It gives you a great foundation to build on top of. Doing a show that’s so hectic in third year, you now have the ability to break things down and know your process of doing things. If we tackled this show in first year, we wouldn’t know where to begin.
Company is on at the Studio Underground from June 6-June 11.