COMPANY plot questions

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 2:59pm

Okay, so I have seen the current revival enough times that I could probably perform all roles. And I've been obsessed with the show since I can remember.

But, last night, two questions arose:

1. I have never been sure as to whether or not Joanne really wants to "make it" with Bobby, or is she is just trying to wake him up. The way Barbara Walsh plays it makes it so deliciously difficult to tell!

2. Also, during "Barcelona", Bobby becomes a bit of a chauvanist, a little bit of a jerk... And it's sort of strange because I don't recall ever really seeing that side of him. Yes, he's got commitment issues and he is a bit of a player, but the "morning after" attitude seems a bit unlike him and a little bit startling. Am I nuts?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 3:12pm

These are both questions that friends and I toy with a lot. I too know that thing by heart.

As for the first, I don't really have an answer for you; and honestly, which way I think it swings when I see the show almost depends on the night. Sometimes I absolutely think she wants to sleep with Bobby, or at least has those feelings for him. Other times I think she is using something that will get his attention to do him a favor. Realistically, it's probably a bit of both. To me, Joanne is the person who most "gets" Bobby, but the danger within that is that she is also the person Bobby is afraid to become.

I've heard Barcelona referred to as one of the great mystery songs in the musical theater canon, because it's so hard to figure out what's really going on there, and that of course nobody but Sondheim knows what it all actually means. Perhaps my interpretation is a bit too sympathetic and gives Bobby too much benefit of the doubt, but I'm not sure that he's really being a jerk... or if he is it's not on purpose, I guess. What I do see in Barcelona is someone who is very torn. He's not in love with April; hell, he can't even remember her name, yet he wants her to stay. Or, she might as well stay. Sometimes I wonder if his asking her to stay is not only his confusion in what he wants, but some attempt to let her down easy. There are two possibilities, as I see it: Bobby could, I guess, actually be confusing love and lust what with all of his problems and think he actually has feelings for this girl. Or, if he is in fact self-aware enough to know that he doesn't feel anything deep for her, then I could see it that he's letting her down easy.

It seems like he's beginning to realize that he wants somebody, and even if he knows she's not the girl for him, her company is comforting. I think it echos that whole "you've got to want to marry somebody, not just somebody" sentiment, which Barcelona demonstrates that he hasn't fully grasped yet. I think he's stuck between real indifference, trying to be indifferent because he's afraid not to be, and actually wanting her to stay, albeit for all the wrong reasons. You're not nuts -- it isn't typical Bobby behavior, but I can't really condemn as a jerk a character who's so conflicted. I guess the simplest way to put it is that I don't feel like he's trying to be an asshole to her. I just feel sorry for him! (I feel sorry for April too, but for different reasons.)

I'm not sure if that helps you since it's all just more ambiguity, but there's my pocket change, for what it's worth.

I also think it goes without saying that how you read both of those moments has a lot to do with which production you're looking at because of actors' tendencies, line readings and all of that. For that reason, I'd be very curious to hear the thoughts of others on this, since because none of us are Sondheim, there's no definitive answer.

Updated On: 5/22/07 at 03:12 PM

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 3:35pm

Sondheim said years ago that they wanted a show where the audience would laugh their heads off for 2 hours and then go home and not be able to sleep..ie - they have questions about what they saw.

So I guess in his mind your reaction makes the show a success!

The way I have always read the Joanne proposition scene is that she is serious: she finds Robert attractive and let's face it she has had many husbands (and probably numerous affairs.)

As to the "Barcelona" scene, one of the crucial bits seems to have been deleted from recent productions...namely the "Tick Tock" dance (named, I suppose, because of the ticking effect coming from the percussionist during Robert and April's dialogue) which ends with April declaring "I love you" to which Robert can only reply "I...I...." It's a very touching moment and his hesitation says volumes about where is head is at (now that the blood is slowly returning there.)

So as Barcelona progresses he is saying what he thinks he ought to say, pleading with April to stay knowing full well she can't. Then, when she decides to skip work and stay his "Oh God" response should (I think) be more sad than funny but in every production I have seen it always gets a laugh no matter how well the actor playing Robert tries NOT to be funny about it. Maybe it's because the audience senses the tension and the laughter is a nervous response.

[Taryn]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 3:38pm

One thought I've always had about Barcelona is it's about Bobby TRYING to make a committment. Trying it on for size, as it were, but...less emotionally indifferent as that makes him sound. He's got all these people in his life trying to endorse marriage and the connection you find with another human being, so Barcelona, in my mind, is a lot about Bobby thinking that maybe he should try this, try to make himself vulnerable and ask her to stay.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 3:41pm

When Stritch said that line, there was no doubt she wanted it.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 3:42pm

I think it could definitely be nervous laughter; Bobby realizes what he's done once she says she will stay. He begged her to, probably didn't mean it, and now he's stuck with her (for the morning, at least). It seems like that kind of situation where you're like "wow, that person is screwed, but I'm laughing because at least it's not me who got myself into that hole." It is sad, but also sort of darkly funny and ironic.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 3:45pm

Thanks, guys.

Barbara says her line and really makes me believe she wants him. But it's the pulling away and look she gves to, "But who will I take care of?" that always makes me wonder.

Perhaps it's the way Raul is playing it right now (and don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with the interpretation - I LOVE his performance), but I don't really feel sympathetic for him or see any struggle during the song. It might be the direction he was given, but the yawning and ambiguous attitude to the situation makes me feel like he could care less.

[gumbo2]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 3:47pm

Yeah, I always got that he didn't REALLY want her to stay, I mean he is yawning all throughout the song and can't remember her name...He mostly pleads so much because he knows she can't stay, and then of course, when she does he is stuck.

As for Joanne, I kind of thought of it as, she's sort of just saying it to get a reaction out of him but if he agreed she would totally do it.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 3:48pm

But that's how he plays almost the whole show, and I just don't get it.
It's so one note.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 3:50pm

You're right, and the yawns were added in... I don't remember when. They're interesting because that is definitely a choice that can get you to look at it one way or another. I always saw them as a comedic choice and, honestly, and they certainly do get laughs, but I do see the other side of the coin. Something about Bobby's indifference is funny because he's not even trying to hide it when he yawns mid-sentence. I was going to say that it's interesting for it to get so many laughs, really, but the audience could still perfectly well laugh at a character who they think is being a jerk. I guess I would say that there are jerky moments injected throughout the song, but that it doesn't strike me as the overall tone. Not sure how much sense that makes. I'm sitting in an East Asian philosophy class.

And I think she pulls away because she's shocked that he actually said those words, regardless of whether she really wants to sleep with him or not. That shock seems like it could exist either way.

Updated On: 2/22/07 at 03:50 PM

[Craww]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:01pm

Raul in that scene always plays with a certain near-pathetic sleepy vulnerability for me. Like it's obvious he's being a jerk, but he's not doing it in a slick manipulative way.

In response to the Joanne question, I saw it as a "both". Which is how I prefer it.

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:06pm

When I read the title of this thread the word that came to my head was oxymoron.

I love this show for this very reason - everyone takes something different from different things. It's so complex and delicious to study.

[Craww]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:32pm

...doesn't calling this thread title an oxymoron suggest that Company inherently doesn't have a plot?

[C is for Company]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:36pm

Well it does have plot, just not one that is well defined in terms of any indication of time. Just, to quote Hal Prince, "snapshots of a mans life."

[Julian2]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:39pm

There's a story, just no linear plot. Which is perfectly marvelous (To quote another Prince show).

Edited for clarity and correction.

Updated On: 2/22/07 at 04:39 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:45pm

Of course it has a plot; stuff happens, and in that sense there's theatrical action and drama. Having no plot is a bad, bad thing (most of the time, anyway). Plot and story are two different things and depend on each other -- the story is everything implicit and explicit about the plot. The plot is all elements of the story that you actually see explicitly. Company's plot is just not a linear one.

Updated On: 2/22/07 at 04:45 PM

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:50pm

You guys are correct, thanks. I was trying to express that there's nonlinear story telling but clearly my response didn't make sense.

Anyway, plot and story are the same thing as plot is defined as the story present in a work. Therefore it can't have a plot and no story or a story and no plot.

Updated On: 2/22/07 at 04:50 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:53pm

They're technically (or theoretically, really) two incarnations of the same thing, but as I posted before not exactly identical.

Updated On: 2/22/07 at 04:53 PM

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:59pm

Yup. Thanks for the insight, em! You are definately our resident Company person.

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 4:59pm

Yup. Thanks for the insight, em! You are definately our resident Company person.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 5:00pm

Heh, hardly -- I still defer to the vets who know far more about the show than I do. And that's not even really a Company thing. Just theory. But thank you!!

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 5:08pm

Oh, I know it wasn't Company related. I just love that you're at every Company thread with something to add.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 5:16pm

Well, you know, I think about it just a little.

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 5:40pm

Michael Bennett used the example of sleeping with someone and all you can hear or focus on is the tick tock of the clock.

That's where that comes from.

[Danielm]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 6:18pm

I think the Joanna question can work either way, but I think she's serious when she propositions him but is smart enough to recognize that his reply goes to a deep need in him.

As for April, he coaxes her to stay when he thinks she can't--he thinks he wants her to stay because she's going but when she decides to stay he's caught in his own deception. Robert does want a commitment and thinks it might be with April but she's really just a one night stand. She's rather dim and they have nothing in common so it wouldn't be an especially good relationship as he doesn't respect her.

I don't think Tick Tock is integral. I think if it's done well it can be great but when it's cut I don't think it effects the emotional through line.