'Company,' With Neon, Updates and Patti Lupone

DOES ANYONE STILL WEAR — A FUR? Patti Lupone as Joanne, who sings the anthem “Ladies Who Lunch” near the end of Act II of “Company.”

OH, I HAD SEEN “Company” before. The first time on Labor Day weekend 1970 with the glorious original cast. Then in a 1993 concert benefit, then in London and in a couple of Broadway revivals.

I thought the idea of turning Bobby, a 35-year-old man who refuses to settle down like all his married friends, into Bobbie, a 35-year-old woman with similar proclivities, was misguided. So the only reason I really wanted to see the new production was to hear Patti Lupone sing “Ladies Who Lunch.”

I’m happy to say I got what I’d hoped for and more.

For one thing, I got Patti. No understudy on a Saturday matinee — yay! From “I’d like to propose a toast” to the last lyrics about the dinosaurs surviving the crunch, it was a thrill. But my friend J, who is a longtime TV public relations executive, brought up something I hadn’t put my finger on. Her version was missing the bitterness of Elaine Stritch’s original.

Elaine thought it was ridiculous that so many women were shopping for hats, arranging brunches, taking optical art classes, downing vodka stingers and “clutching a copy of Life just to keep in touch” — they’ve changed it to “a copy of Time” now — but she also thought it was inevitable. Maybe that’s why she drank. In 1970.

Patti just thinks it’s interesting. I felt more of Lupone’s world-weariness in other numbers throughout the show and in her spoken dialogue. There’s nothing like the bite of her distinctive spoken voice to cut through the blather of the other husbands and wives’ chatter and get down to the ugly truth.

My favorite number is and always has been “Another Hundred People,” about the constant flow of newcomers arriving in New York by train, plane, bus and Volvo, filled with hopes and anxieties about the new life they’ve just landed in. I loved the staging. I like actors dancing in and out of big people-size neon letters. Others must enjoy it too; “Company” won this year’s Tony for best set design.

J’s favorite was “Not Getting Married,” always a tour de force. Now sung by Jamie (Matt Doyle), not Amy, who is confessing — to us, the audience — that his wedding to Paul planned for later today is not going to happen. Yes, there has been a good bit of updating in this “Company.” Gay people now exist. (They didn’t in the 1970 original.) So do black people.

I don’t know what it was like for others in the audience. If the laughter that met long-familiar lyric punch lines was any indication, there were plenty of first-timers in the house. But I liked this production’s acknowledgment of the show’s classic status. Essentially the designers have put the production in a neon frame for safekeeping. Next time, let’s admit that 50 years have passed and do it as a period piece.