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music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by George Furth, directed by Dylan Trowbridge

Talk Is Free Theatre, Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen Street West, Toronto

January 17-February 8, 2026

Bobby: “Marry me! And everybody will leave us alone”

The always surprising Barrie-based company, Talk Is Free Theatre, continues its exploration of Stephen Sondeim with a new production of his show Company from 1970. Toronto has already seen TIFT’s Assassins (1990) in 2010, Into the Woods (1986) in 2021, Sweeney Todd (1979) in 2022 and the Shaw Festival hosted the major Sondheim rarity The Frogs (1974) just last year. What unites Company with these other TIFT productions is an emphasis on narrative and dramatic clarity proceeding from insightful direction and performances. This is an obvious must-see for all fans of musical theatre.

I described the musical in my 2014 review thus: “Company was so radical when it first appeared because it was the first musical to be organized according to theme instead of plot. Sondheim would develop this new type of musical from Follies that premiered in 1971 through Assassins in 1990. The theme that ties Company together is marriage. It is the 35th birthday of Bobby and all his friends, consisting of five married couples, have gathered to give him a surprise party. Now that Bobby has entered middle-age (at least according to the dialogue), his friends all begin to wonder why he is not married. The trouble is that Bobby is indecisive. Not only can he not decide whether to marry or not, he can’t choose among the three girlfriends he is juggling”.

Company is inherently flawed. While the piece features some of Sondheim’s most inventive music, the book by George Furth is terribly dated. The show is based on ideas that were old-fashioned even in 1970. One is that all people should marry. The show suggests that men should marry after having sown their wild oats and that all women ultimately desire to marry. The show presents Bobby’s 35th birthday as a midlife crisis because Bobby has not yet married. As I noted in 2014, “This notion, that no amount of revising can eliminate, shows the survival into 1970 of attitudes we associate more with the conservative 1950s and early ’60s.… That a person must be married to this lifelong companion is part of the antiquated mindset of the show”. In 1990 Sondheim and Furth revised the work because even they saw it was dated. Looking back from today’s perspective, all one can see in the book is a group of White privileged people who somehow have the luxury of focussing on Bobby’s singleness because they have nothing else important to think about.

Furth based the musical on a series of short skits he had written about marriage, and this structure still survives so that Bobby visits all five couples in turn and discovers the tensions great and small that underlie marriage and make the prospect so off-putting to him.

Countering all the problems with the book is the genius of Sondheim’s music, some of the most sophisticated and intricate he ever wrote. Since there is nothing anyone can do about the presence of so much of Furth’s less-than-witty dialogue, the solution in producing Company is to play the spoken scenes with as much verve as possible so that the music does not lose its impetus.

The last time Toronto saw a professional production of Company was by the newly-formed Theatre 20 in 2014. It was most notable for its cast packed with well-known musical theatre stars. While musically the production was exceptional, dramatically the energy came to a clunking halt with every scene of dialogue. For the current production, director Dylan Trowbridge seems to be aware of the show’s weak spots and has gathered a cast of singing actors, capable not only of putting across Sondheim’s great songs but also of making the most Furth’s uninspired vignettes of married life. The result is a production that makes a much stronger case for Company than did the starry 2014 production. Besides this, in a rare move for musicals in Toronto, the show is presented unmiked as it would have been in 1970. It’s real pleasure to experience a classic musical this way.

Shane Carty and Krystin Pellerin play Harry and Sarah, the first couple who invite Bobby over. Carty and Pellerin are rather like George and Martha in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in their constant sniping at each other, climaxing in a round of “karate” (by which Furth means judo). Theatre-goers will be familiar with both performers primarily as actors, but they prove to have such strong voices one wonder why they aren’t cast more often in musicals.

Jeff Irving and Jamie McRoberts play Peter and Susan, the second couple Bobby visits. The two who seem to be blissfully happy announce that they are planning to divorce. The reason becomes clearer in Act 2 when Peter gives Bobby a kiss. Trowbridge cleverly uses a simple kiss to replace the clunky dialogue in the original between Bobby and Peter about homosexual experiences. Would that Trowbridge had cut even more dialogue from each of the spoken scenes. Irving, of course, is a regular in musicals at the Shaw whose performances are always a pleasure. McRoberts has a classically trained soprano and frequently gives the many choral sections the body they need to make the greatest impact.

The third couple, the pot-smoking David and Jenny are played by Richard Lam and Kirstyn Russelle. Lam, best-known for his fine acting, has a warm, attractive voice and Russelle, who played Una in TIFT’s Blackbird last year, surprises with strong, rich mezzo-soprano. As in 2014, this couple comes off as the most realistic of the five, although Irving and McRoberts’s couple is a close second. In both cases the love the partners feel for each other appears stronger than their differences.

Bobby meets up with the fourth couple of Paul and Amy because Bobby is Paul’s best man at his wedding. Amy, however, is having an attack of second thoughts which Sydney Cochrane successfully articulates in one of the fastest patter songs ever written. Noah Beemer’s steady voice reflects his character’s steadiness at a time of crisis.

The fifth and final couple of Larry and Joanne is also the wealthiest. Michael Torontow plays Larry as a man older than Bobby who likes to act younger, while Gabi Epstein plays Joanne as a multiple divorcée who doesn’t realize that her ultra-blasé attitude is unappealing. Joanne is given “The Ladies Who Lunch”, the show’s best-known song, but she sings it as if she is wearing a mic which means that about half of the words are so soft that they go unheard.

Maggie Walters, Madelyn Kriese and Sierra Holder play April, Kathy and Marta, the three young women Bobby is dating. Furth gives Kathy one short scene and little to do, but Kriese’s rueful Kathy makes that vignette memorable. Holder has the song “Another Hundred People” but all the movement of thirteen people on stage tends to drown her out. Walters combines two tired stereotypes from the 1960s – the dumb blonde and the flirtatious stewardess – but Walters somehow plays the character with enough aplomb that we find her portrayal amusing.

Aidan deSalaiz exudes soulfulness as Bobby. Rather than characterizing Bobby as paralyzed with indecisiveness, as it is usually done, deSalaiz plays Bobby as a kind of innocent who becomes increasingly alienated by the five portraits of marriage he encounters. His meditative accounts “Someone Is Waiting” and “Marry Me a Little” don’t reflect a desire to marry as much desire for a kind of marriage that doesn’t seem to exist. DeSalaiz’s powerful final number “Being Alive” portrays marriage not so much about love as about needing company (as per one meaning of the title) as a cushion against death: “To help us survive / Being alive!”

The accompaniment is provided by the indefatigable Stephen Ermel at the piano and Aaron Schwebel on violin. Trowbridge’s concept is that Ermel and Schwebel appear as hired musicians at Bobby’s party which seems to encompass the whole show, since Trowbridge has performers interact with the two throughout the show. Trowbridge presents the musical as a self-aware performance since he has the actors sit in view on both sides of the stage when not engaged in a scene.

The chance to see an influential musical like Company performed so well and performed unamplified is one musical theatre fans should leap at. Luckily, the pressure to be married by a certain age is mostly a thing of the past. What resonates particularly in this production is the essential loneliness of all people even when they are married. It is a boon that Trowbridge and his cast are able to make this more universal side of Company stand out.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Aidan deSalaiz as Bobby (foreground) with Jeff Irving as Peter, Krystin Pellerin as Sarah, Shane Carty as Harry, Kirstyn Russelle as Jenny, Richard Lam as David, Gabi Epstein as Joanne, Michael Torontow as Larry, Sydney Cochrane as Amy, Noah Beemer as Paul and Jamie McRoberts as Susan (background); (1st row: Noah Beemer as Paul and Sydney Cochrane as Amy, Gabi Epstein as Joanne and Michael Torontow as Larry; 2nd row: Richard Lam as David and Kirstyn Russelle as Jenny, Jeff Irving as Peter and Jamie McRoberts as Susan, Krystin Pellerin as Sarah and Shane Carty; 3rd row: Aidan deSalaiz as Bobby; Jeff Irving as Peter and Jamie McRoberts as Susan. © 2026 Dahlia Katz.

For tickets visit: theatrecentre.org.