Company (Broadway Musical)

[quote]Why is this not more famous?

Because it was never made into a movie, you freaking dumbass.

It's plenty famous among the people who count.

Try reading the THEATRE GOSSIP threads.

It's not famous if only Bernadette Peters has heard of it.

It's still funny and moving and is done a lot in community and regional theaters. It'll never have the appeal of Sondheim's Into the Woods, but it's a great show.

Suddenly thought of this one tonight:

It IS famous dummy.

You didn't mention the Raul revival. Shame on you.

Raul was the best cast person ever. When he begins playing that piano and then full forces launches into the song it is utterly heartbreaking and shatters you.

It was very successful in its day (one of the few Sondheim shows to make back its original investment during its original run), and it's enormously beloved by Broadway queens (why else would it be so regularly revived?). but it dated within about three years after it went up--which is always the problem of doing a musical set in the present day and trying to be hip and happening.

Also, no standards emerged from it--not even "Being Alive," which was probably the closest thing to one from it. Though the songs are brilliant, most of them can't be sung out of context from the show very easily for the general public to appreciate (which is actually part of the show appeal to Broadway queens).

I don't think Raul Esparza was the perfect Bobby, although he has a gorgeous voice and played the piano well. He was too high strung and sharp-edged--Bobby only makes sense if he's incredibly pleasant to be around (which would explain why he's so adored and why his friends all feel so comfortable around him).

He made an interesting contrast to Dean Jones and Larry Kert and Boyd Gaines (and later NPH). But I still think Kert was the best for the part. His Bobby was both sexy and easy to be around.

I should note, btw... I consider myself a Broadway queen!

[quote]Why is this not more famous?

Have you been in a coma since 1970? It was just recently revived on Broadway with a female "Bobbi" and Miss Patti LuPone in the Elaine Stritch role, in a production that was originally done in London, again with Miss LuPone.

I watched the cast recording on Criterion Channel, and can’t figure what the hell it’s about (based solely on the music). Is there really a scene where a woman is goading her husband into beating the shit out of her?

Company is a very famous show. It has had four Broadway productions and a high-profile concert version at Lincoln Center.

It's a kind of a kooky show which never quite satisfies. It only makes sense if Bobby is gay, which of course he is, but the script pretends otherwise, thus the disconnect. The score is great and actors love singing it, plus thea-tuh people all think it is a masterwork (it isn't).

Did you just get the OBC album, OP?

[quote] Is there really a scene where a woman is goading her husband into beating the shit out of her?

No, not "beating the shit out of her." You pulled that one completely out of your ass.

She's taken martial arts lessons, and she goads her husband into "coming at her" as an attacker would, because she knows she can easily flip him when he does.

OP is a clueless millenni-ass.

And another100 people just got off of the train!!!

OP, just because you have never heard of something doesn’t mean no one else has either.

It’s plenty famous.

R15, of course she doesn’t literally ask her husband to beat the shit out of her. However, I have never seen the play, but enjoy “The Little Things You Do Together,” which includes dialogue from the play. There’s absolutely nothing to indicate the wife is learning martial arts—she just keeps telling her husband to “Come at me.” Meanwhile, the husband sounds like he’s trying his hardest to land a punch, before he’s forced to cry uncle.

R14 has posted the age-old, moth-eaten, trope that Company works only if Bobby is G-A-Y. And proclaims that the character is gay - of course, no one associated with the original production has ever agreed with the the statement that Bobby is gay. As a poster upthread said, Bobby has to be pleasant enough, regular guy so his 'company' is enjoyed by very different couples.

Company does not work because the book for the show is lousy. It originated as a series of vignettes, maybe short one-act pieces, by George Furth when he was in therapy. George showed the works to Sondheim who saw potential. Then with Hal Prince they began constructing a musical. Bobby was created as the thread/character to tie all of those different stories together. B-L-E-C-H.

The score is marvelous, the characters great to play, but the stories together do not a show make. Just look at the opening and close... Bobby listening to his answering machine alone, thinking about his friends in his apartment and at the end of the show, he is not in his apartment, but his friends are and he has not arrived for a surprise party. What-the-hell? Just bad.

Yes, there are a lot of dated references - still it's a very moving musical, and yes, as long as the theatergoer recognizes that Bobby is a gay man, it's a story that resonates with almost any gay man that sees it. I disagree with r21 about this. How many gay men have been told by their female friends and straight couple friends about the joys of marriage and "why don't you settle down?" The notion of a life that doesn't revolve around being partnered is anathema to society in general and especially to straight society. (Not that single people who are straight don't get this pressure too, but very often they are socialized into wanting it even if they don't have it. Now that gay people can legally marry, many of us are pressured and socialized into wanting it too). I agree that the story does not meet the normal criterion of Exposition, Conflict, Resolution, that we expect from a satisfying musical, but it's very thought provoking and very familiar territory for gay men. I think straight people watching it might be thinking the whole time.. well, he IS attractive, why isn't he pursuing a serious relationship?

One line that always sticks out to me in the dated category is "Call me in the morning or my service will explain". By the early 1980s, the answering machine was invented or came into common use, and poof, the entire profession of "a phone service" disappeared overnight.

[quote]One line that always sticks out to me in the dated category is "Call me in the morning or my service will explain". By the early 1980s, the answering machine was invented or came into common use, and poof, the entire profession of "a phone service" disappeared overnight.

Tell me about it.

[quote]—Sue's AnswerPhone

That would be Susanswerphone.

It's a unique beast in that the score is excellent, the characters are fun, there's lots of funny dialogue, and the scenes by themselves are terrific, but the story comes across like you're channel surfing back and forth from multiple different sitcoms. Bobby is a dull character and it takes a very likable, charismatic actor to bring him to life. "Being Alive", as great a song as it is, rarely feels earned by the end of the show to me. His epiphany seems like something tacked on to make the audience leave on a high and, in the original tryouts, he sang a much more cynical song about how marriage wasn't for him. It's not the rousing emotional breakdown of "Being Alive", but it suits the show better.

It's almost as if they simply switched finale songs and didn't have time to go back in and fix the book so that the rest of the evening led to Bobby having this breakthrough.

I couldn't believe it, but there were some interesting tweaks to the show in the last revival that worked in the show's favor and I found it to be one of the funniest and most moving productions of the show I've ever seen.

[quote]the story comes across like you're channel surfing back and forth from multiple different sitcoms

Which is pretty much exactly the point.

[quote]Company does not work because the book for the show is lousy.

Yeah, it makes you think Bobby is really gay, or something!

I don't think Bobby is gay... he has lots of hetero sex for a homo

If you're a gay man and you relate to Bobby, that's fine. But again, for the umpteenth time - not one of the show's CREATORS wrote the character as a homosexual.

It's incredible that people continue to spout this nonsense that the show only works if one sees Bobby as gay.

George Furth was not gay. Hal Prince is not gay (although I'm sure some 80+ yr old NYC resident will chime in with a tale that a friend of a friend swears the Prince is at least bi). Sondheim was gay and he never said Bobby was gay or was gay but they could not present him that way in the 70s, etc...

The show is not 'great' because the book for it is lousy. It's put together from very disparate stories or short works by Furth with the character Bobby created to tie everything together.

The 2018 London/2021 Broadway revival (we saw it in London) is brilliant. The switch to Bobbie as female and one couple as gay works really well.

RIP, SS. Too bad you never really wrote a gay musical. (And one of your last musicals--Passion--was anything but passionate.)

[quote] the book for the show is lousy.

There is no book! It's a non-story story, quite unique in its premiere; all taking place as memories and moments. It completely un-did decades of traditional musical theatre tropes. That's why it stands out.

r29 has STATED HIS BOUNDARIES!