[3gp Hindi Company 2
Iberio Ralda
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,[1] and is a notable example of a concept musical lacking a linear plot.[2] In a series of vignettes, Company follows bachelor Bobby interacting with his married friends, who throw a party for his 35th birthday.[3]
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.[4]
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 Bobby wished for nothing, and said that his friends are all he needs ("Company").
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 fianc. 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 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. 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").
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.[5] 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",[6] 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 Bobby 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, Bobby'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").
Directed by Hal Prince, the musical opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on April 26, 1970, and closed on January 1, 1972, after 705 performances and 12 previews.[12][13] The opening cast included Dean Jones, who replaced Anthony Perkins early in the rehearsals, Donna McKechnie, Susan Browning, George Coe, Pamela Myers, Barbara Barrie, Charles Kimbrough, Merle Louise, Beth Howland, and Elaine Stritch.[14] Musical staging was by Michael Bennett, assisted by Bob Avian. The set design by Boris Aronson consisted of two working elevators and various vertical platforms that emphasized the musical's theme of isolation.[12]
Displeased with the show and struggling with personal issues, Jones left the show on May 28, 1970, and was replaced by understudy Larry Kert, who had created the role of Tony in West Side Story.[15]
In his September 2, 2015, obituary for Jones in The New York Times, Mike Flaherty reported that "he quit the production, citing stress and depression related to the recent collapse of his own marriage." Flaherty quotes Jones' 1982 autobiography, Under running laughter, in which he wrote of Company: "It was a clever, bright show on the surface, but its underlying message declared that marriage was, at best, a vapid compromise, insoluble and finally destructive."[16]
Kert earned rave reviews for his performance, and the Tony Awards committee decided that he was eligible to compete for Best Actor in a Musical, an honor usually reserved for the actor who originates a role.[17]
Award-winning documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker captured the making-of the original cast recording shortly after the show opened on Broadway. His 1970 film Original Cast Album: Company earned early accolades, as well as a cult following, for its unvarnished look at a grueling recording session.[19][20] Stritch, Sondheim, and producer Thomas Z. Shepard are featured prominently.
The first national tour opened on May 20, 1971, at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California, with George Chakiris as Bobby, and closed on May 20, 1972, at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C.[21]
With so many Broadway cast members reprising their roles, producers chose not to record a new cast album; instead, they re-released the original cast album, replacing Jones's vocals with Kert's, and branded it the London cast album.[23]
795a8134c1