Aidan deSalaiz in Company.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
- Title: Company
- Written by: George Furth
- Music and lyrics by: Stephen Sondheim
- Director: Dylan Trowbridge
- Actors: Aidan deSalaiz, Noah Beemer, Shane Carty, Sydney Cochrane, Gabi Epstein, Sierra Holder, Jeff Irving, Madelyn Kriese, Richard Lam, Jamie McRoberts, Krystin Pellerin, Kirstyn Russelle, Michael Torontow, Maggie Walters
- Company: Talk Is Free Theatre
- Venue: The Theatre Centre
- City: Toronto
- Year: Runs to Feb. 8
There’s a moment in George Furth and Stephen Sondheim’s Company that ought to make the whole thing sing.
It happens – or ought to happen – in the second act, when Bobby, the directionless, 35-year-old birthday boy, is asked, point-blank, if he’s ever had a homosexual experience. The answer is yes, he says, but he quickly adds that he’s not gay – his indecision about marriage, which makes up most of the narrative thrust of the show, has roots elsewhere.
The problem: That moment isn’t in the version of Company staged by Talk Is Free Theatre, now playing in a disappointing production at the Theatre Centre in Toronto.
After Furth and Sondheim added in the exchange between Bobby and friend Peter for Company’s 1995 revival, they soon removed it. Opinions vary about Sondheim and Furth’s reasoning for the cut, but the version of the show now available to license in many ways more closely resembles the original 1970 iteration of the script.
Jeff Irving and Jamie McRoberts in Company.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
In Talk Is Free’s take on Company, however, director Dylan Trowbridge takes the material into his own hands. He resurrects that queer reading of Sondheim’s most elusive protagonist in the form of a confusing, lingering kiss between Bobby (Aidan deSalaiz) and Peter (Jeff Irving) in the second act.
The two lock eyes, then lips – and then they move on. The moment passes as quickly as it arrived, another wisp of midlife ennui for Bobby, whose life happens around him in vignettes and smoky memories.
But the gesture isn’t a direct replacement for that cut bit of dialogue. It’s a complication of it, and one that leaves Desalaiz floundering for the rest of the show in a sea of half-formed directorial ideas.
By the time Bobby’s 11 o’clock number rolls along – the iconic Being Alive – it’s not all that apparent that Bobby has reached a new destination in his journey to becoming an adult capable of committed love. Being Alive feels like just the beginning – but never do we get to see the payoff of whatever discoveries Bobby made during that kiss, or even during the dinners and drinks with his married friends that constitute most of Company‘s runtime.
Sierra Holder and the cast of Company.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
Indeed, Talk Is Free’s Company is surprisingly uneven across its direction, performances and design. Over the years, the Barrie, Ont.-based company has built a reputation for outstanding site-specific theatre (including three plays in The Globe’s round-up of the best theatre of 2025, one of which, Cock, was directed by Trowbridge), and for staging the works of Sondheim with the requisite levels of care and whimsy.
But something – well, alas, a few things – are off in Company.
Staged at the Theatre Centre on Queen Street West, the production is a rarity for Talk Is Free – the collective seldom uses traditional theatre spaces for its work. Company, as with the bulk of Talk Is Free’s portfolio of shows, could be staged nearly anywhere – a vintage wine bar, perhaps, or a large, carpeted living room, or a rooftop terrace – but instead fits awkwardly into the cavernous Theatre Centre space, with just a few set pieces to suggest Bobby’s swanky, seventies environs. (Varvara Evchuk designed the set and costumes.)
The space proves burdensome for most of Company’s two-and-a-half-hour runtime – the theatre’s angular corners and unpadded walls do no favours for a musical stuffed with wordy patter songs. Erik Richards’s sound design leaves the actors unamplified, meaning Sondheim’s lyrics regularly get lost to the Theatre Centre’s wet echo. The imperfect acoustic, as well, encourages Company’s cast to push themselves vocally, resulting in strident (and often flat) sustained notes.
Gabi Esptein, centre, Aidan deSalaiz, and Michael Torontow in Company.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
There’s a case to be made, as well, that without incisive, confident directorial intervention, Company can only exist as a period piece. Of course, that’s not necessarily true – Furth and Sondheim’s musings on love, ambition and the universal desire to be known easily transcend the decades which have passed since Company’s Broadway premiere – but Furth’s book shows its age, and at times its cultural references and musings on dating, without much of a plot to lubricate the show’s pacing, need help making the journey to the 21st century.
Trowbridge is occasionally up to that task, and his treatment of the material is intermittently inspired – for instance, during the show’s intermission, Desalaiz sits in the Theatre Centre’s lobby with a birthday hat, continuing to watch the world pass him by in an era far removed from his own. But much like that electrically charged kiss in the second act, Trowbridge’s strongest choices feel impulsive, and unsustained by the work at hand. (It doesn’t help that Rohan Dhupar’s choreography regularly upstages the story and lyrics – or that a handful of the cast is often a step or two behind the rest of the ensemble.)
A few performances help elevate the production: Gabi Epstein offers a Ladies Who Lunch nearly worthy of Broadway, and Michael Torontow, Richard Lam, Noah Beemer, Maggie Walters and Madelyn Kriese are standouts in Trowbridge’s ensemble cast, cannily navigating Sondheim’s luscious score and Furth’s text. (Stephan Ermel and Aaron Schwebel also sound great on piano and violin, respectively, in a dandy distillation of Company’s orchestrations.)
But Company, on the whole, is a surprise from Talk Is Free Theatre, and not in the ways the company has become known for being surprising. I wish I’d loved Company, and that the production hadn’t left me feeling a bit like Bobby – mouth agape, mildly sad and hungry for whatever might come next.
Dahlia Katz/Supplied
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of actor Aidan deSalaiz's surname.