Musical Tiiiiiiiiime: Company

[The Bard Babe]

Ok, so I guess I should be doing this for musical of the month or something...maybe this can count for next month's motm?

 

But anyway, I'm currently doing a musical at school-that's right folks, an entire musical, all the way through, not our usual cutting and pasting of different songs from different shows into one big vague sorta plot.

 

And the musical we're doing is...*drum roll* *remembers it's in the thread title anyway* *doesn't care*

 

COMPANY!!!!

 

By Stephen Sondheim.   Love that man.

 

So, I want to introduce you all to it, because it's a very good and little known musical.

 

By musical standards, it has very little of the 'cheese factor' you tend to expect from musicals. It's quite funny, but the humour is much less slapstick than you'd expect from a stage show (though it has its moments)  It's aimed at an adult audience, as it offers, rather than an escape from normal life like most musicals, a confronting look right back at it. It makes the whole thing quirky and intriguing, and it's very easy to fall in love with the characters.

 

It has no plot as such, but the entire show revolves  around Bobby, who goes by a different variation of his name depending on who he's with, the five married couples that make up his best friends and three of his girlfriends that make brief appearances but aren't really all that important in the overall plot. Not that that overall plot is very clear. It doesn't really have a plot, but rather begins at Bobby's 35th birthday party,

 

 

and then goes off into a whole heap of flashbacks which involve Bobby and one of the couples he hangs out with. Bobby has no real love in his life and some commitment issues and the whole story really revolves around him learning about himself and marriage vicariously through his friends' sometimes quite dysfunctional relationships.

 

There's this educational number on the things that make marriage a joy:

 

 

And then Bobby's question 'Are you ever sorry you got married?' is answered (not very decisively) by this beautiful number:

 

 

Bobby's ex-girlfriends make an appearance when he claims he doesn't have commitment issues, (which in this version basically means an assault by the saxophone section):

 

 

Skipping a few songs ahead, we get to Getting Married Today, in which one character gets seriously cold feet and has a bit of trouble getting her wits together:

 

 

Awesome patter song, it's so much fun to watch in pretty much any production!

 

Then there's Bobby deciding he thinks he's ready to be married, but only the way he wants:

 

 

Again, skipping a couple of big chorus numbers and some other fun songs, we get to Ladies Who Lunch, which is Joanne's very cynical view of the world amplified by a couple of vodka stingers and a badass voice:

 

 

(Also the song I'm theoretically getting the solo for) So many people do amazing versions of this song, you should go and look them all up!!!

 

 

If you watch nothing in this thread, just watch these last two. That last one and this one, which is Bobby's epiphany at the end of the show, Being Alive:

 

 

 

So, there's no definitive version of the show, but this 2006 revival is just about the closest you're going to get, and it's bloody amazing! And I'm not just saying that because the actors also play the orchestral accompaniment, but they do some of the best versions of these songs anywhere on the internet. So, I'm pretty in love with this musical and I want some converts to rave over it with. Get to it!!

 

[Nyanna al'Meara]

Aweshum!! Yeah, I'd never heard of this one before.... how does it end? Does Bobby like, find himself or come to some conclusion, like the song suggests? :D

 

Also, if you get teh solo are you gonna get to drink the vodka XD

[The Bard Babe]

He he he he, I shall definitely drink the vodka! Method acting!

 

Being Alive is the final song, so take from that what conclusions you will   ;p