Company is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth. The original 1970 production was nominated for a record-setting 14 Tony Awards, winning six. Company was among the first book musicals to deal with contemporary dating, marriage, and divorce,Broadway: the American musical, episode 5: "Tradition (1947–1979)", 2004. and is a notable example of a concept musical lacking a linear plot. In a series of vignettes, Company follows bachelor Bobby interacting with his married friends, who throw a party for his 35th birthday.Sondheim, Finishing the Hat (2010), p. 166.
Background George Furth wrote 11 one-act plays planned for Kim Stanley. Anthony Perkins was interested in directing and gave the material to Sondheim, who asked Harold Prince for his opinion. Prince said the plays could be a good basis for a musical about New York marriages with a central character to examine those marriages.Zadan, Craig. Sondheim & Co. (1986) , p. 116.
Synopsis In the early 1990s, Furth and Sondheim revised the libretto, cutting and altering dialogue that had become dated and rewriting the end of act one. This synopsis is based on the revised libretto.
Act I Robert is a well-liked single man living in New York City whose friends are married or engaged couples. The couples are 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, although Robert wished for nothing, and said that his friends are all he needs ("Company").
What follows is a series of disconnected vignettes in no chronological order, each featuring Robert visiting with one of the couples or alone on a date with a girlfriend.
In the first vignette, Robert visits Sarah, a foodie who is dieting, and her husband, Harry, a recovering alcoholic. Sarah and Harry taunt each other on their vices, escalating toward karate-like fighting and thrashing that may or may not be playful. This prompts the caustic Joanne, the oldest, most cynical, and most-often divorced of Robert's friends, to sarcastically comment to the audience that it is the little things that make a marriage work ("The Little Things You Do Together"). Harry explains, and the men concur, that most people are both thankful and regretful about getting married, and that marriage changes both everything and nothing about the way they live ("Sorry – Grateful").
Robert is next with Peter and Susan, on their apartment terrace. Peter is an Ivy League graduate, 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 the three 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 dating—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"). After Jenny asks for another joint, but is discouraged by David, David privately tells Robert that Jenny does not actually like marijuana, but partakes in it as a show of her love for him.
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 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 both highbrow and lowbrow. Robert is left stunned.
The scene turns to the day of Amy and Paul's wedding; they have lived together for years, but are just now getting married. Amy has gotten an overwhelming case of cold feet, and as the upbeat Paul harmonizes rapturously, a panicking Amy breaks the fourth wall and confesses to the audience that she can't go through with it ("Getting Married Today"). Robert, the best man, and Paul watch as Amy complains and self-destructs over every petty thing she can possibly think of, and then finally explicitly calls off the wedding. 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 she runs out after Paul, at last ready to marry him. Before she leaves, Robert tosses Amy's bouquet over to her. She catches it, joyfully exclaiming: “I’m the next bride!”
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 ("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 couples have to help him with the rest. The couples share their views on Robert – both complimentary and unflattering – with each other 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, each man, in turn, does a dance step that is answered by his wife. Robert likewise does a step but he has no partner to answer it.
Robert brings April to his apartment for a nightcap, after a date. She marvels 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 his seduction. Meanwhile, the married women worry about Robert's single status and the unsuitable qualities they find in the women he dates ("Poor Baby"). As Robert and April have sex, we hear Robert and April's thoughts, interspersed with music that expresses and mirrors their increasing excitement ("Tick-Tock"). In some productions, including the original Broadway production, this is accompanied by a solo dance by Kathy. 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 loses 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 with fear and regret ("Barcelona").
Robert and Marta visit Peter and Susan, and learn that Peter flew to Mexico to get the divorce, but he phoned Susan and she joined him there for a vacation. Though they are divorced, 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. 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 Robert and he could have such an encounter, but Robert uncomfortably laughs off the conversation as a joke.
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, passing judgment on various types of rich, middle-aged women wasting their lives away with mostly meaningless activities ("The Ladies Who Lunch"). 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". Robert's reply, "But who will I take care of?" seems to surprise even him, and strikes Joanne as a profound breakthrough on his part. Robert insists he has 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, as they all again invite Robert to "drop by anytime...". Rather than the cheery, indulgent tone he had responded with in earlier scenes, Robert suddenly, desperately, shouts "STOP!" 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, Robert'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 living ("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 ("Finale").
Principal casts