Synopsis(from the OBC booklet)Company has no plot, so any synopsis must be, like the show itself, a state of mind. The entire thing takes place--in a moment? In a year ?--in the thoughts of Robert, who is about to walk in on a "Suprise" party in honor of his 35th birthday. Robert's a bachelor, he seems pretty normal, he has a nice apartment, and he goes to bed with a lot of women. He's not gay, although some students of this show have their doubts, and that's all we know about him, except that his only friends--the girlfriends plainly don't count---are five married couples, who dote on him and think he should be married too(Company).ShowsCouple by couple, we begin to see these friends up close. Sarah and Harry, are obsessively dieting/drinking except they aren't, and the tension comes together in a little Karate demonstration (The Little Things You Do Together).
Robert's shaken up by this, and he can't help asking Harry weather he doesn't regret getting married. Harry's answer: he's(Sorry-Grateful) as the other husbands concur.
Susan and Peter seem the happiest and best adjusted of all---maybe that's because they've decided to get a divorce. Of course, they still live together.
Jenny and David are worried that they're old and boring, so Robert offers them an illegal cigarette. In this altered state, Robert claims he wants to get married, he just hasn't met the right person, which is contradicted by a trio of his girlfriends in the Rodgers and Hart -felt (You Could Drive A Person Crazy).
Roberts male friends, for their part can't decide weather he should share their "misery," or hold onto his freedom at all costs. So they live through him vicariously, setting him up with women they can't have (Have I Got A Girl For You).
In the abstract, at least Robert can imagine the women of his dreams--she's an amalgamation of his friends wives (Someone Is Waiting) as he lists her attributes, we realize no such person could possibly exist.
Which causes him to reflect on the single women he actually does know, April the stewardess who is sweet but dumb:Kathy who's engaged and moving to Vermont: and Marta a kooky intellectual who scares Robert but plainly has the big picture in focus (Another Hundred People).
Amy and Paul, an interfaith couple who have lived together for years, are finally (Getting Married Today). That is, if Amy doesn't commit suicide first. In the midst of all this, Robert finds himself proposing to her. The moment passes, the wedding goes forward, the curtain comes down.
The start of Act Two finds us back at the birthday party--which really hasn't happened yet--with Robert and the married couples (Side BY Side By Side). We begin to wonder, uncomfortably, how these people would cope if Robert did actually marry someone--and his married friends are thinking the same thing (What Would We Do Without You).
In fact, while the wives want Robert married, they have also decided that no woman is good enough for him ( Poor Baby).
Lonely Robert may be, but he doesn't lack for companionship: we see him in bed with April( Tick-Tock), but in lieu of a sex scene, we get a show-stoppingly sexy dance.
In the afterglow, Robert realizes April is getting up and leaving for (Barcelona). For a moment, Robert is on the brink of some sort of commitment. The moment passes.
Finally, he finds himself in some Eurotrashy nightclub with his wealthy older friends Joanne and Larry. Joanne drinks while Larry dances with younger women, but Larry clearly loves her, and most of her sarcasm is directed at herself (The Ladies Who Lunch).
Drunk but lucid, Joanne propositions Robert, saying she'll take care of him, which prompts Robert to ask, "But who would I take care of?" This is his moment of self truth (Being Alive), in which he, well, commits to commit.
(...or doesn't). Until well into the Boston tryout, Company ended with another song, "Happily Ever After", in which Robert reaches exactly the opposite conclusion, deciding he's better of on his own. Prince would not have it. Sondheim for his part called the "Being Alive" ending "a cop out".(you decide.)
Anyway the birthday party is still waiting, and waiting. At last his friends realize he's not coming home, which holds out the hope that he's met Miss Right. As they depart, Robert emerges from the shadows, blows out the candles, and maybe makes a wish. For what?
