Get a behind-the-scenes look into the rehearsal room of “Company” with Marianne Elliott, Patti LuPone and Katrina Lenk.
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TRANSCRIPT
Quiet.
♪♪ I could understand a person, person ♪♪ ♪♪ If she happened to be gay. ♪♪ You think? Do I know? Nah.
♪♪ A person that, a person that titillates a person and then leaves a him flat. ♪♪ ♪♪ It's crazy. She's a troubled person. ♪♪ ♪♪ She's truly crazy person herself. ♪♪ [Overlapping dialogue] It's hard for me to imagine it except the way it was written it's very hard for me to think of Bobby as a woman, so we've had a number of talks and I've taken a lot of notes and I'm gonna try to get into the female psyche.
♪♪ I don't think in terms of working is it going to be worth working on who knows if something is going to work or not that doesn't concern me.
What concerns me is I wanted to work with Marianne and she has a vision of it you know.
That's quite an interesting concept the idea of working something working because I feel like the older I get the more I work in the theater the more I realize about attempting and failing. Yeah. Attempt and fail, attempt and fail. Well, that's true of all art. Attempt and fail better.
Yes I suppose it is.
So and you've got to be in a place where you are bold and confident enough to try something that could possibly fail.
♪♪ You like coming home to a kiss, someone with a smile at the door ♪♪ ♪♪ Whaddya you like, you like indescribable bliss, so whaddya you want to get married for? ♪♪ ♪♪ Whaddya like you like xxx filing your days, somebody on your side ever more. ♪♪ ♪♪ Whaddya like you like constant showers of praise. Then whaddya want to get married for? ♪♪ ♪♪ Whaddya want to get married for? ♪♪ That's one of my favorite things is just sit and listen to Marianne describe how the show is and how it works.
So I hear Katrina behind his back a little bit as if you girls have actually been talking about him about the marriage which is what makes him go 'ooo hang on what have you been saying about my marriage with you' yeah ah good good that scene is really really good that second bit very very delicate, we're so nearly there I think all we need to do now is just tighten.
She is such an actor's director and not just like, let's do a big dance number and then like, here's the scene, let's get to another dance number.
She's very much into the scene and creating the characters and the objectives and obstacles and tactics.
I think all the things that can sometimes get overlooked in a in a big, splashy musical.
♪♪ ♪♪ Call me tomorrow I want the details ♪♪ ♪♪ Have I got the man for you, wait till you meet him. Have I got man for you, oh kid ♪♪ ♪♪ The kama sutra and Chinese techniques he says he knows more than seventy-five call me tomorrow if you'''re still alive ♪♪ Have I got the guy for you. Wait till you meet him ♪♪ There are so many levels you can watch it and just just kind of let it wash over you or you can watch it and find all those specific little things. There's nothing like you said earlier really there's nothing that's just a gimmick.
Everything and so specific and there for a reason and intentional and I love that about her work so much.
I'd like to propose a toast.
♪♪ Here's to the ladies who lunch, everybody laugh ♪♪ It's a complicated scene, it is a complicated scene in the original.
♪♪ Lounging in their caftans and planning a ♪♪ ♪♪ brunch on their own behalf ♪♪ Joanne she's very vulnerable underneath. Really, and she's lovely.
Person underneath. But she's got this kind of acerbic ironic wit.
Which has won her a lot of trophies and a lot of friends a lot of guts that got her into a lot of places has got her three husbands and a young friend like Bobby but she she, I think, is possibly extremely jealous also because she's a woman of a different era and she's. looking at Bobby, who is independent, free, sexually active, attractive, got youth on her side, everything that Joanne doesn't have and has never really had that kind of life.
I'll drink to that.
♪♪ Here's to the girls who stay smart, aren't they a gas ♪♪ ♪♪ Rushing to their classes in optical art. ♪♪ It has evolved over the years because the way I sang it. And, you know, before there was a character attached to it was one way and then the way I sang it when I played it with the New York, Phil was another way.
And then when Marianne flipped it on its ear and Bobbie and I are, it's two women talking, and it's another way. I mean, it's usually a stand-alone in the spotlight 11th hour number for whose ever playing Joanne. I'm not of that school. I'd rather be in the play than step out of the play.
You're constantly growing in the part.
It's constantly changing within the parameters of how you've been directed and the character. It's constantly evolving. And so whereas in the beginning it was Joanne making fun of her class.
I have arrived at something else where I am illustrating to these children behind me.
These, these Stalwarts, these class, these very classy women, I can make fun of them, but you can't.
You have no idea who they are and what they represent.
She is saying, I don't fit in here.
I don't fit in with the young people they're all staring at me.
I don't care. I'm going to just raise a toast to myself.
So here's the toast to myself.
I'm the kind of woman that you all love the woman who lunches. The woman who, you know spends $1,000 every day, or the woman who wears a mink coat. Yeah.
Here you go. Have a laugh at this I'm spectacular, though.
But at one point I turned to Katrina. Actually, it was.
I turned to Rosie in the London production. And said, and here's to the girls who just watch. And it was like a revelation.
♪♪ And here's to the girls who just watch, aren't they the best. ♪♪ She goes different places and at one point in the song, she starts to sing about Bobby being the person who just watches all the time and just has another scotch.
It had never been played that way before.
And then all of a sudden it made total sense to turn and give that particular line to Bobby.
Here's to the the girls who just watch.
You never know quite what they're gonna do, within the parameter but it feels always so alive and present.
♪♪ I'll drink to that ♪♪ So here's to the girls ♪♪ So here's to the girls ♪♪ ♪♪ on the go everybody tries. ♪♪ ♪♪ Look into their eyes and you'll see what they know ♪♪ ♪♪ Everybody dies ♪♪ ♪♪ A toast to that invincible bunch. The dinosaurs surviving the crunch. ♪♪ ♪♪ Let's hear it for the ladies who lunch ♪♪ ♪♪ Everybody rise! Rise! Rise Rise! Rise! Rise!
And so she I think she's screaming at the clubbers rise, rise to me, rise to me, but they all leave.
So she's left. On her own.
The other thing to do is to have a cigarette.
