Stephen Sondheim's Company

In 2011, the New York Philharmonic held a concert production of Stephen Sondheim's Company, with a star-studded cast led by Neil Patrick Harris and featuring Patti LuPone, Stephen Colbert, Christina Hendricks and Martha Plimpton among others. Happily for us it was preserved on film.

Lonny Price, who directed both the staging and the film, knows his way around the material and Avery Fisher Hall, where he staged and filmed the 2010 Sondheim birthday concert and the concert versions of Sweeney Todd, Candide, Passion and Camelot; he also filmed the 2007 Broadway revival of Company. The guy knows how to capture live performance on camera in a mostly seamless manner (a smattering of unflattering upward shots from the lip of the stage notwithstanding).

And these performances are worth capturing. If you watched the 2011 Tony Awards, you saw the cast performing the big group number ‘Side by Side’, definitely the highlight of the concert. But individual moments are delightful as well, from Plimpton and Colbert's karate showdown (and the incongruity of seeing Colbert in sincere mode, singing ‘Sorry-Grateful’) to Mad Men vamp Hendricks's zealous take on flighty stewardess April. Harris makes a nearly ideal Bobby, even if his vocals are a tad thin for ‘Being Alive’. And while I wouldn't call it definitive, LuPone's dark take on ‘The Ladies Who Lunch’ is worth the price of admission.

Encore screenings this Easter weekend at Dendy Newtown (Apr 6-8) and Dendy Opera Quays (Apr 10 Tue).

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