A deeply satisfying, revelatory revival on so many levels, director Marianne Elliott’s Tony Award-winning production of Stephen Sondheim’s marriage-contemplating musical “Company” — now making an early stop in Chicago on a new tour — freshens a 50-year-old show to the point that many have claimed, as I would, that this is the best version yet.
The headline is that the lead character changes from male Bobby to female Bobbie. Sondheim contributed to the tweaks, fully recognizing the benefits of a new perspective on a show first produced in 1970. The gender swap works so well that it solves what has always been the show’s major weakness, a central character without much personality, a likable but shallow bachelor primarily present to spur judgments on and from the swirl of married friends around him.
