another hundred people - company- Page 2

[fiatlux]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 5:56pm

"Not one of the many productions of Company that I have witnessed has just been a "little over two hours". In fact, most have been closer to three."

That is long. I was looking at the running time on my last production and we were coming in at 2hrs and 10 minutes, although we advertized it at 2.15. But I have to admit, I've never heard it as being described as a long show. Obviously, you have persevered with the show for quite some time.

"I understand the idea of disconnection, but it has to be all brought together by something. They need to result in some sort of message or change or purpose. I've never really gotten any of those from the show. Where's the point?"

Chekhov once said that getting married was easy, living together was hell. That is Robert's problem he can see this all too easily, however, he realizes that the alternative to commitment is to live a pointless existence in the "city of strangers" - being hit upon by married friends and making excuses not to talk to Kathy or April. The change is underlined in Being Alive - he starts angrily listing the negative aspects of married life but realizes that these are also the positives of Being Alive.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 6:16pm

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.

[fiatlux]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 6:28pm

I agree about the ending - it can come out of the blue, however that's the challenge and the interest of the show for the actor and director .

(BTW the song was Happily Ever After - tho' "Unhappily Ever After" would sum it up)

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 6:55pm

Ack, you're right. Thanks.

[442namffug]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 6:58pm

The ending was another detail that I was thiking about and speaking of but didn't address directly. It's just another plot hole that doesn't serve the show well.

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 7:02pm

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.

[Plum]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 7:11pm

Okay, can you explain how a show with no plot has plot holes?

Also, I definitely wouldn't call Fiddler, for instance, a concept musical. Maintaining traditions in changing times is a theme of the show, but lots of shows have themes; it's a facet of literature. What matters is what drives the show, and I think in Fiddler plot takes precedence over theme/concept. Same goes for West Side Story- I don't even see how dance can be a concept; it seems more like a way of expressing things to me, alongside song and speech.

As for Company- it's a show that's hard as heck to do properly, because the structure is so unusual. You need a really charismatic Bobby to make up for the fact that he spends so much of the show just observing, and you need to have a sense of connection and build from one sketch to the next so the final explosion of Being Alive makes some kind of sense.

[paradox_error]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 7:14pm

10 points for Plum.

Oh wait, are you being aggressive again?

[fiatlux]

Posted: 11/13/05 at 7:15pm

"It's not a good college show."

My first production was at college and I know that it's stayed with the majority of the cast as having a lasting influence (I'm afraid to say that was more than twenty years ago). So much so that, the woman who played Amy had Being Alive sung at her wedding a few years back...I'm not sure what her husband thought.

BTW can't you be both Marta and a narrator at the same time? The song is a comment on what the background to the scene is...

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/14/05 at 11:18am

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.

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

[nydirector2]

Posted: 11/14/05 at 12:55pm

I did Company in college, and our Marta set the scenes for each of the girl friend scenes during Another Hundred People, so she also served as a bit of an Emcee.

I think it's interesting how the argument over this whole show is merely about taste and oppinion rather than the actual content of the show. Some people think theatre or a show should have guidelines, more or less following the Aristotlean(sp?) plotline, while others prefer a more abstract look. Your comparing apples to oranges when you start to analyze Company as a show with normal plot points, or even a stable protagonist.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 11/14/05 at 5:30pm

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.

[442namffug]

Posted: 11/14/05 at 5:39pm

You delete my comment that discusses and gives evidence for my reasons for disliking the show, yet you allow "Wasn't that a quote from Hitler?" to stay? How tastefull......That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

So, I will continue to repost my thoughts, as they are opinion based just as all of the others have been.
*********

I was discussing how the "skit" idea doesn't work because it's a collage of ideas rather than a cohessive piece. The "existential" nature of the show is too broad (ergo overthetop) and doesn't allow the audience to connect. This makes it entirely difficult to be moved or, in some way, changed by the purpose, as there is no clear argument presented. I have given many examples and evidence regarding the show's inability to inspire. It leaves the audience thinking "Ok. That was---nice. Where are we going for dinner?"

[fiatlux]

Posted: 11/14/05 at 5:59pm

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

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 12:03am

Fiatlux, I totally agree. It's a ridiculous term. It just doesn't mean anything. Every musical has a concept behind it. And there is a dramatic arc for Bobby, you're right. Hate the term.

442, Sondheim's lyrics are pretty clear about whatever it is the show is trying to say. I don't want to sit here and quote lyrics at you, which has been done in prior posts. If you don't think the show says anything then that's up to you. It's not over the top or effusive. It's just not simple. Many, many people have been moved by Company, including myself. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

So in other words... it does work. Just not for you. I congratulate your boldness for taking it on. To me it's like accusing Hemingway of being a subpar writer because his writing isn't flowery (i.e. criticising an artist/writer who's work has been widely appreciated and influential many years after it came out and has been reviewed by others probably more qualified to judge), but it's good that you don't just jump on the bandwagon.

Oh well, not everybody is going to like everything, Sondheim freaks get over it and leave him to his opinions. Some of which are very valid (such as Bobby's character doesn't have an effective or believable journey).

And so posts have been getting deleted? Why? That's not cool. For example, my post about how Fiddler actually WAS a concept musical... :P

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 1:08am

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.

[IssaMe]

Posted: 11/15/05 at 7:33am

Speak for yourself - but it sure "connected" with me. In fact, it was the show which changed my life. And I know several other people who feel the same way.

Apples and oranges. Blanket statements about it "connecting" or "not connecting" are personal ... and personal only.

And everyone has the right...