Company is a 1970 musical comedy with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The
original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and
won six. Originally titled Threes, its plot revolves around Bobby (a
single man unable to commit fully to a steady relationship, let alone
marriage), the five married couples who are his best friends, and his three
girlfriends. Unlike most book musicals, which follow a clearly delineated plot,
Company is a concept musical composed of short vignettes, presented in
no particular chronological order, linked by a celebration for Bobby's 35th
birthday. Company was among the first musicals to deal with adult themes
and relationships. The writer created eleven one-act plays with a central
character to examine New York marriages.
Act I
Robert is a
well-liked single man living in New York City, whose friends are all married or
engaged couples: Joanne and Larry, Peter and Susan, Harry and Sarah, David and
Jenny, and Paul and Amy. It is Robert's 35th birthday and the couples have
gathered to throw him a surprise party. When Robert fails to blow out any
candles on his birthday cake, the couples promise him that his birthday wish
will still come true, though he has wished for nothing, since his friends are
all that he needs ("Company"). What follows is a series of
disconnected vignettes in no apparent chronological order, each featuring
Robert during a visit with one of the couples or alone with a girlfriend. The
first of these features Robert visiting Sarah, a foodie supposedly now dieting,
and her husband Harry, an alcohol abuser supposedly now on the wagon. Sarah and
Harry taunt each other on their vices, escalating toward karate-like fighting
and thrashing that may or may not be playful. The caustic Joanne, the oldest,
most cynical, and most-oft divorced of Robert's friends, comments sarcastically
to the audience that it is "The Little Things You Do Together" that
make a marriage work. Harry then explains, and the other married men concur,
that you are always "Sorry-Grateful" about getting married, and that
marriage changes both everything and nothing about the way you live.
Robert is next
with Peter and Susan, on their apartment terrace. Peter is Ivy League, and
Susan is a southern belle; the two seem to be a perfect couple, yet they
surprise Robert with the news of their upcoming divorce. At the home of the
uptight Jenny and chic David, Robert has brought along some marijuana that they
share. The couple turns to grilling Robert on why he has not yet gotten
married. Robert claims he is not against the notion, but three women he is
currently fooling around with—Kathy, Marta, and April—appear and proceed,
Andrews Sisters-style, to chastise Robert for his reluctance to being committed
("You Could Drive a Person Crazy"). David tries to tell Robert
privately that Jenny did not like the marijuana, after she asks for another
joint. "I married a square," he reminds his wife, demanding she bring
him food.
All of Robert's
male friends are deeply envious about his commitment-free status, and each has
found someone they find perfect for Robert ("Have I Got a Girl For
You"), but Robert is waiting for someone who merges the best features of
all his married female friends ("Someone is Waiting"). Robert meets
his three girlfriends in a small park on three separate occasions as Marta
sings of the city: crowded, dirty, uncaring, yet somehow wonderful
("Another Hundred People"). Robert first gets to know April, a
slow-witted airline flight attendant. Robert then spends time with Kathy; they
had dated previously and both admit that they had each secretly considered
marrying the other. They laugh at this coincidence before Robert suddenly
considers the idea seriously; however Kathy reveals that she is leaving for
Cape Cod with a new fiancé. Finally, Robert meets with Marta; she loves New
York, and babbles on about topics as diverse as true sophistication, the
difference between uptown and downtown New York, and how you can always tell a
New Yorker by his or her ass. Robert is left stunned.
The scene turns
to the day of Amy and Paul's wedding; they have lived together for years, but
are only now getting married. Amy is in an overwhelming state of panic and, as
the upbeat Paul harmonizes rapturously, Amy patters an impressive list of
reasons why she is not "Getting Married Today." Robert, the
best man, and Paul watch as she complains and self-destructs over every petty
thing she can possibly think of and finally just calls off the wedding
explicitly. Paul dejectedly storms out into the rain and Robert tries to
comfort Amy, but emotionally winds up offering an impromptu proposal to her
himself. His words jolt Amy back into reality, and with the parting words
"you need to marry some body, not just some body," she
runs out after Paul, at last ready to marry him. The setting returns to the
scene of the birthday party, where Robert is given his cake and tries to blow
out the candles again. He wishes for something this time, someone to
"Marry Me a Little."
Act II
The birthday
party scene is reset, and Robert goes to blow out his candles. This time, he
gets them about half out, and the rest have to help him. The couples share
their views on Robert with each other, comments which range from complimentary
to unflattering, as Robert reflects on being the third wheel ("Side By
Side By Side"), soon followed by the up-tempo paean to Robert's role as
the perfect friend ("What Would We Do Without You?"). In a dance break
in the middle of the number (or, in the case of the 2006 Broadway revival, in a
musical solo section), each man (or actually four of them, as there's not music
for a fifth) in turn does a dance step (or, in the revival, plays a solo on his
instrument), answered by his wife. Then Robert likewise does a step (or, in the
case of the 2006 Broadway revival, plays two bad notes on a kazoo), but he has
no partner to answer it.
Robert brings
April to his apartment for a nightcap after a date. She marvels ad nauseam
at how homey his place is, and he casually leads her to the bed, sitting next
to her on it and working on getting her into it. She earnestly tells him of an
experience from her past, involving the death of a butterfly; he counters with
a bizarre remembrance of his own, obviously fabricated, and designed to put her
in the mood to succumb to seduction. Meanwhile, the married women worry about
Robert's single and lonesome status (as they see it), and particularly about
the unsuitable qualities they find in the women he does date, asking,
"Isn't she a little bit, well--Dumb? Tacky? Vulgar? Old? Tall? Aggressive?
Where is she from?...She's tall enough to be your mother...." ("Poor
Baby"). When the inevitable sex happens, we hear Robert's and April's
thoughts, interspersed with music that expresses and mirrors their increasing
excitement. This music often (as in the original Broadway production)
accompanies a solo dance by Kathy, conveying the emotions and dynamics of
making love; it has also been staged as a pas de deux, a group number, or been
cut altogether in various productions ("Tick-Tock”). The next morning,
April rises early, to report for duty aboard a flight to "Barcelona."
Robert tries to get her to stay, at first wholeheartedly, parrying her
apologetic protestations that she cannot, with playful begging and insistence.
As April continues to reluctantly resist his entreaties, and sleepiness retakes
him, Bobby seems to lose conviction, agreeing that she should go; that change apparently gets to her, and she joyfully
declares that she will stay, after all. This takes Robert by surprise, and his
astonished, plaintive "Oh, God!" is suffused not with triumph, nor
even ambivalence, but with evident fear and regret.
In the following
scene, Robert takes Marta to visit Peter and Susan, on their terrace.
Apparently, Peter flew to Mexico to get the divorce, but he phoned Susan and
she joined him there for a vacation. Bizarrely, they are still living together,
claiming they have too many responsibilities to actually leave each other's lives,
and that their relationship has actually been strengthened by the divorce.
Susan takes Marta inside to make lunch, and Peter asks Robert if he has ever
had a homosexual experience. They both admit they have, and Peter hints at the
possibility that he and Robert could have such an encounter, but Robert
uncomfortably laughs the conversation off as a joke just as the women return.
Joanne and Larry
take Robert out to a nightclub, where Larry dances, and Joanne and Robert sit
watching, getting thoroughly drunk. She blames Robert for always being an
outsider, only watching life rather than living it, and also persists in
berating Larry. She raises her glass in a mocking toast to "The Ladies Who
Lunch", passing judgment on various types of rich, middle-aged women
wasting their lives away with mostly meaningless activities. Her harshest
criticism is reserved for those, like herself, who "just watch," and
she concludes with the observation that all these ladies are bound together by
a terror that comes with the knowledge that "everybody dies." Larry
returns from the dance floor, taking Joanne's drunken rant without complaint
and explains to Robert that he still loves her dearly. When Larry leaves to pay
the check, Joanne bluntly invites Robert to begin an affair with her, assuring
him that she will "take care of him." The reply this elicits from
him, "But who will I take care of?" seems to surprise him, and to
strike Joanne as a profound breakthrough on his part, "...a door opening
that's been stuck for a long time." Robert insists it's not, that he's
studied and been open to marriages and commitment, but questions "What do
you get?" Upon Larry's return, Robert asks again, angrily, "What do
you get?" Joanne declares, with some satisfaction, "I just did
someone a big favor." She and Larry go home, leaving Robert lost in
frustrated contemplation.
The couples'
recurrent musical motif begins yet again, with all of them focused anew on
their "Bobby Bubbi," "Robert darling," "Bobby
baby," and again inviting him to "Drop by anytime...." Rather
than the cheery, indulgent tone he would responded with in earlier scenes,
Robert suddenly, desperately, shouts "STOP!" In their stunned
silence, he challenges them with quiet intensity: "What do you get?"
The music to "Being Alive" begins, and he sings, openly enumerating
the many traps and dangers he perceives in marriage; speaking their
disagreements, his friends counter his ideas, one by one, encouraging him to
dare to try for love and commitment. Finally, Bobby's words change, expressing
a desire, increasing in urgency, for loving intimacy, even with all its
problems, and the wish to meet someone with whom to face the challenge of
"Being Alive." The opening party resets a final time; Robert's
friends have waited two hours, with still no sign of him. At last, they all
prepare to leave, expressing a new hopefulness about their absent friend's
chances for loving fulfillment, and wishing him a happy birthday, wherever he
may be, as they leave. Robert then appears alone, smiles, and blows out his
candles.
