To return to Company and Robert's final song, "Being
Alive," in which he either admits that he really does desire a
committed relationship, the song does not, unlike "Rose's Turn"
and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," utilize any previously
heard musical themes. The song seems to come at least partly in
response to the song that immediately precedes it, "The Ladies Who
Lunch," sung by Joanne, the wife with whom Robert seems to have
the closest relationship. Although the stage directions suggest
that Robert and Joanne's husband, Larry, who is also onstage when
she sings it, do not hear the song (the lights black out, leaving
Joanne alone in a spotlight as she sings to us in the audience),
the song states one of the major themes of the show, one that
relates directly to "Being Alive." In "The Ladies Who Lunch,"
Joanne offers a series of toasts to various types of women, all of
whom seem to be, from her descriptions, well-to-do with too little
to occupy them, women who must construct their lives around
trivial activities since they needn't work for a living. What they
all have in common, she tells us, is their knowledge that
"everybody dies." They don't let this knowledge defeat them, but
instead they try to put meaning into their empty lives through
their various activities, many of which may seem silly and worthy
of derision, but Joanne seems to be suggest that there is also an
admirable quality about these women and their determination to
keep going. Perhaps they are not even trying to put meaning into
their lives, but merely distracting themselves from this
knowledge, but they don't give up. And Robert, Joanne seems to be
implying, has given up.
The song, however, could also be interpreted as Joanne's condemnation of these women (among whom she includes herself) who try to overcome the ever-present specter of death in only the most trivial of ways. If her song is about some of the ways in which people give meaning to their lives, or at least find a way to go on, in the face of their knowledge of mortality, then Robert's song, "Being Alive," is, in its very title, clearly a response of some sort, on the part of Sondheim, if not on Robert's part, since the stage directions, of course, seem to indicate that he has not heard Joanne's song. (Some productions--including Sam Mendes's London revival, of which Sondheim thought highly--have ignored those stage directions. Judging from the videotape of that production, although Joanne separated herself from Robert and Larry and came downstage to sing to us, they did seem to hear her.) Robert's final song comes, however, most directly in response to Joanne's attempted seduction of him, which occurs after her song, and her offer to "take care of him." When Joanne takes his response--"But who will I take care of?"--as a sign that Robert in fact has a deep-seated desire to take care of someone, a desire that he has repressed, his initial response is angry denial. (In the substantial revisions that Sondheim and Furth made in 1995, the authors no longer suggest that these moments be played with anger.) All the couples enter and try to distract him by repeating their opening chorus of questions and demands, but he is having none of it anymore, and shouts at them to stop. He then asks them, "What do you get?" As he tries to answer the question, at first in negative terms, by listing the ways in which another person's continual presence is annoying, the couples encourage him to look at it from all sides. He gradually starts to see that what he has perceived as negatives are also positives. He realizes that commitment to another person is painful because it makes you aware that you are alive (and not a zombie, a member of the walking dead, as the three girlfriends described him in their song). Being alive is inherently painful. Eventually, you will die and you lose everything. If you have made a commitment to someone, you lose that person, too. But if you live your life alone, when you die you are losing less, and thus your life has been less meaningful. By running away from commitment to another person, by distracting yourself, by narcotizing yourself--with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, casual sex, prolific social contacts, all the distractions that life that New York offers in abundance--you may feel less pain, but you also feel less joy. You may actually experience more things, but you feel less. In other words, you will die without ever having been really alive. Thus, through the course of the song, Robert is able to articulate the lie he's been telling himself and move past it to a new truth, to new possibilities, to the promise of some sort of redemption.
After Robert's song, we return to the birthday party one last
time. The couples are waiting for Robert, but he never shows up.
He knows it is time to move on, and they seem to realize it, too.
Sondheim has stated, in a television interview on the program
Face to Face with Jeremy Isaacs, that the show "is about a
single moment in a man's life, literally maybe three seconds, in
which something snapped inside his head and he reviews his life to
that moment, on one level--on the level of commitment, of
emotional commitment--and makes a decision. So the musical, in
that sense, takes place within a two-or-three-second span." So
all the birthday parties we have seen, including the final one,
are in Robert's head. They are his anticipation of the birthday
party he expects his friends to give him, while he reviews his
relationships with him and with the three possible girlfriends
and, essentially, reviews his entire life, and makes his decision
not to show up. At least we presume that's his final decision,
since that's the final birthday party we see, and that he imagines
and hopes that they will understand why he doesn't.
Sondheim's music and lyrics brilliantly explore the themes implied by the book. The lyrics are heavily rhymed, and the rhymes themselves are often clever, to reflect the urbane, hip, highly educated characters and the fact that they are commenting on the foibles of others from a distanced, ironic perspective. The music is similarly contemporary sounding, with more of a pop-rock influence than is usual in Sondheim's work, abetted by the original orchestrations, which helped Sondheim's score create that contemporary feel. The presence of electronic instruments in the original orchestrations also helped create the cold, impersonal feel of contemporary urban life, presented in the show as an obstacle that makes it difficult for the characters to connect. However, although only one of the songs is actually sung between two characters in conversation with each other ("Barcelona"), there are several songs in which character do sing of their deepest feelings. These songs are certainly not cold and impersonal at all, however cold and impersonal the environment in which the characters live may be, or however ambiguous they feelings that they articulate may be. Indeed, whatever the show's flaws--e.g., Robert's relative passivity as a hero, the not-entirely-convincing denouément--which have frequently been discussed, it is the show's refusal to pretend that everything is wonderful, its determination to see as many sides as possible--the negative feelings that people have, the misery and anguish--that gives it its enduring power. Even if you don't believe Robert's final realization, as many don't, it is hard to shake off the feelings that the show creates for those watching it. Company received a mostly ecstatic critical response. Sondheim would certainly never be ignored again.
“Assassins is about how society interprets the American Dream, marginalizes outsiders and rewrites and sanitizes its collective history. "Something Just Broke" is a major distraction and plays like an afterthought, shoe horned simply to appease. The song breaks the dramatic fluidity and obstructs the overall pacing and climactic arc which derails the very intent and momentum that makes this work so compelling...”
- Mark Bakalor
“I found [the Sondheim Celebration's Company] to be completely delightful. Almost all of the numbers excited and energized me, and most of the scenes were about as pitch-perfect as you can get. I just sat there with a big smile on my face the whole show.
Which is not to say that it is perfect...”
- popcornonmyknees
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