another hundred people - company — Page 2

Well, it's hard to contest that Company is about marriage (being married, deciding to get married, etc). While it avoids marriage as a fiscal or religious decision/question, it emphasizes marriage as an emotional question. Just the idea of actually comitting yourself to another person. "Sorry-Grateful" is all about that. I would also say it's a lot more specific than what some other people say, since it's pretty clear that it's about a certain class of people living in a big city where people have a hard time connecting with one another during the 60s/70s. It's also pretty clearly about a guy named Bobby who's getting older and still isn't married but really, actually doesn't want to get married after reviewing the married relationships of his friends (more on this in a second). It's not a plot, but it's a concept and a dramatic question. The vignettes are setups for the songs which definitely have a lot to say, in my opinion. It's not "Who will Laurey take to the dance?" and for this, I am grateful (and not a little bit sorry).

Concept musical is kind of an iffy terminology, but Company wasn't the first one. I'm not even going to try to pinpoint the first concept musical because that's opening the proverbial can of worms but people will argue that West Side Story (dance) or Fiddler on the Roof (maintaining tradition in a changing world) or Cabaret (who knows) were the first. I think Company was the first to dispense with plot nearly entirely. But like I said, it's kind of a stupid word. A Little Night Music is considered a concept musical and I really would argue against that. If it is it's the most disjunct concept musical I've ever heard of.

For me, I relate to what Bobby and the other characters have to say about relationships, so I relate to Company. While I can't say "Ladies Who Lunch" describes my life, songs lke "Sorry-Grateful" and "Barcelona" express what I feel about people and relationships.

One problem I have with the show is the ending, and Bobby's ultimate decision that he ought to get married to be alive, so to speak. Gorgeous song, but still. It seems out of place for this guy who just spent the last two hours showing us that people can't connect to suddenly think he can. Of course the song came into the show very late during production, replacing a number of other finale ultimos including one called "Unhappily Ever After" (which had some of the same or similiar lyrics and melody no less). So the song is an admitted cop-out.

Also, I love the music. I think it's an exciting, funny score with some gorgeous melodies. Company had, if anything, an incredibly innovative sound for Broadway at that point. I love the tecniques Sondheim uses (such as simulating the sound of the dialtone, which reflects the dialogue), the manic vibe of the music. It's a thrilling score and I think that's what keeps people coming back to it time and again. Yes, Sondheim is wordy, but the words offer a lot. And it's hardly SO complicated as people say it is. You might not know who Eliza is or what she's doing on the ice, but I'm pretty sure we can all infer what she means with that line.

Company has a lot to say about the dark side of committing yourself to somebody, and what it means to live in a society where it's okay, maybe even preferable, to remain a bachelor and maintain lots of friends and girlfriends/boyfriends as opposed to getting married and having that sort of life just for the sake of forging imaginary connections. It has a lot more to say than a whole lot of other musicals, I think. But either you connect to it or you don't. I won't even claim it's a matter of getting it. I guess it's just feeling the material.

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Ack, you're right. Thanks.

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I'm playing Marta right now, but my director wants me to sing Another Hundred People as a sort of "narrator" as Bobby goes through each scene with his girlfriends. In other words, I'm not necessarily Marta. It's weird. It's not a good college show.

10 points for Plum.

Oh wait, are you being aggressive again?

For an early concept musical, take a look at R&H's ALLEGRO (1947). The young Sondheim was a go-fer on the piece and he watched as Hammerstein struggled in vain to make the book work. Sondheim has said that the ideas and concept -- an allegory about the life of an Everyman from cradle to grave -- were simply beyond the abilities of his mentor Hammerstein to write and craft into a coherent whole. It has been said -- and he has never really denied it -- that Sondheim has spent his entire career trying to "fix ALLEGRO" and his frequent experiments in form and content over the years have been in many ways inspired by that innovative and noble failure.

To criticize COMPANY for not having a plot is to miss the entire point of the show. It is a multi-faceted rumination on the nature of contemporary relationships, dating, love, companionship and commitment. Through Bobby, Sondheim, Furth and Prince explore the essential question of whether or not the very concept of marriage is worth it or not. Is it better to be with someone who may, to quote the song, sit in your chair and want you too much and make you confused and put you through hell, or remain single, free and unencumbered, but alone and perhaps, empty inside. Bobby is in limbo -- scared of marriage (especially upon taking a closer look at the married couples he knows), but unhappy and unsatisfied being single.

COMPANY isn't just a show, it's an existential crisis set to music, one that forces the audience, single or married, to confront and examine uncomfortable truths about their own lives. With a divorce rate still above 50%, the show is far from dated (though one could argue the original arrangements are) and is as relevant today as it was 35 years ago.

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Updated On: 11/14/05 at 11:18 AM

DDTruitt, I said that Company was not the first concept musical. I don't contend that it was not groundbreaking, it was. But if you're being taught that it invented the genre, you're being taught wrong. Most books will agree that there were concept musicals before it, including the examples that both Margo Channing and I have given. If you feel the need to be ultra specific, then yes, Company was the first non-linear sitcom style concept musical about marriage. To my knowledge. And some people involved with Company did not embrace the term concept musical.

People always tend to go a little overboard when they designate milestones in the musical theater. Oklahoma was fine and all, but what about Showboat and Pal Joey (which features a fantasy dance sequence, lots of ambivalence, an anti hero, what is not necessarily a happy ending, and precedes Oklahoma)? Or, you know, all operetta?

I think it's interesting that Allegro (a show I am mostly unfamiliar with beyond what it's about and a few songs) is considered a concept musical. Hammerstein really did lay the frame for pretty much everything, didn't he.

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I have an issue with the concept of concept musicals In that I'm not very sure what they are. Is Company really a concept musical now, once you remove the original director - is it not a kaleidoscope of views? Is Company really nonlinear? Bobby learns something from the plot and there is a dramatic arc towards that moment he asks - "but who will I take care of?"

Just musings...and please don't take it as an attack...

Updated On: 11/14/05 at 05:59 PM

I arrived late to this discussion, I just believe that everything that has been said in this thread re-inforces Company's status as one of the most complex/controversial shows to be on Broadway. I have seen productions of this show-never on Broadway unfortunately-and I have never been able to leave the theatre without noticing something new or reflecting over a lyric or a line. Sondheim's and Furth's comments in this show are haunting, like Margo said, this show is far from dated. I do believe the Robert's transition is abrupt and I strongly believe the Act I finale needs to be re-written. However, Company is the show that made me fall in love with Sondheim's brilliant intellect. And more on the topic of the title, the song "Another Hundred People" and its clear portrayal of the inability of people to connect make this one of Sondheim's most perfect scores.

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