Company is a rumination on marriage and love in an increasingly metropolitan and cynical world. It centers around main character Bobby, a perpetual bachelor, and his 35th birthday. He's surrounded by married friends, all of whom are determined that this year they will convince him to join their ranks. Through a series of vignettes, Bobby encounters each couple and learns a little more about their lives together. At the same time, he tries to decide whether or not marriage is for him, and if so, who he should share his life with.

Company was a bit of an anomaly when it premiered in the early 1970's. Deliberately ambiguous and full of dark, tough humor, the show offers neither easy answers nor particularly enjoyable characters. Bobby is the best of the lot, and he's generally indecisive and detached. He wants to enjoy the benefits of marriage without the drawbacks. The rest of the characters seem flat out miserable in their relationships. The men often declare outright envy for Bobby's bachelor lifestyle, while the women practically demand that he get married, probably so they no longer have to feel drawn to the lure of his single status. Despite the overall downbeat nature of the show, it is often very funny, with memorable dialogue and even better music.

However much success John Doyle may have found with his bold new take on Sweeney Todd, he can't replicate it with this flat retelling of Company. Sweeney is a very elastic story, and the stylization of Doyle's staging recalled the show's Grand Guignol roots. While it didn't have the same effect of a fully staffed staging, it certainly provided an interesting alternative take. Company, on the other hand, is best told on a larger scale, with a more realistic setting. Doyle has stripped Company down even further than Todd, placing the actors on a square under lit stage with only a Roman column and a grand piano to suggest apartment furnishings. The column is distracting and the piano is almost never used. The actors not currently in the scene sit off the side of the stage, playing their respective instruments. It's not flattering and detracts from the core of the show.

Musically, the concept also falls flat on its face. Company, as the title suggests, is something best performed by a full company of players. The radical re-orchestrations of the songs are inelegant and strip the music of a lot of its beauty and urgency. The singing isn't so bad, with the exception of Joanne Walsh, who is so shrill and noxious that I think I'd rather get kicked in the balls than hear her voice again. It doesn't help that in the spoken dialogue scenes she simply does Elaine Stritch instead of coming up with her own take on the character of Joanne.

The saving grace of the production are the spoken word scenes, which generally retain all of George Firth's dark comedy. In particular, Raul Esparza is great as Bobby, coming off as effortlessly charming while also selling the internal conflicts of the character. And his voice is excellent. If only he had been allowed to play the part with a full orchestra and some real staging, we could have had a true revival of this Broadway classic.

The Blu-ray Disc:

The Image:
Image presents Company in a 1.78:1 1080p-encoded AVC transfer. On the whole, the image is impressive. The first thing you'll notice is the sharpness, which is considerable without ever looking like it's been artificially enhanced. The colors are also strong, although don't quite have the pop I've seen from the best HD transfers. The actual direction for television is thoroughly pedestrian, and inexplicably, whenever the director chooses to use the angle behind the stage, the image is noticeably softer, almost the point of being blurry. But that does show off just how good the rest of it looks.

The Audio:
Image offers a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, and a lossless PCM stereo track. Given how infrequently the surrounds are used in the DTS-HD MA mix, they might as well have called it a stereo mix, as well. There's also not that big of a jump between the lossless and the lossy track, for that matter. Given how dynamic this mix could have been, this is a major disappointment.

The Supplements:
There are two extras on the disc, and both are in standard definition. The first is "An Evening With Stephen Sondheim." Sondheim chats in front of an audience for little over half an hour, talking about his work in general and Company in particular. The second is a series of interviews with Raul Esparza and John Doyle.

The Conclusion:
Company is rightfully considered a Broadway classic, but the stale minimalist staging by director John Doyle might have you thinking otherwise. It's not even interesting as an exercise, since we've seen it done to better effect with Sweeney Todd. Musical fans should check it out for Raul Esparza's strong performance, but even then, this disc isn't a keeper. Rent It.

Daniel Hirshleifer is the High Definition Editor for DVD Talk.