‘Company’ Star Patti LuPone Remembers Stephen Sondheim on Opening Night
Michael Appler Patti LuPone took her seat on the stage of the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre and readied herself, drenched in jewels and a flowing fur coat, for “The Ladies Who Lunch,” the famous Act II showstopper in “Company.” It was opening night, and Stephen Sondheim wasn’t in the audience.Over the past two weeks, what was a celebrated reimagination of Sondheim’s first great musical, written in collaboration with the English director Marianne Elliott and starring Katrina Lenk as Bobbie, had become something entirely different — a living, breathing memorial to its creator, saddled with the responsibility of being the first Sondheim musical, blessed by the composer and lyricist, to open on Broadway after his death.