Sondheim's Company - 2011 - Getting Married Today

Company is a 2011 filmed version of the 1970 musical of the same name by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. The production is directed by Lonny Price and accompanied by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Paul Gemignani. It was filmed live at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. The show stars an ensemble cast led by Neil Patrick Harris. It also stars Martha Plimpton, Stephen Colbert, Jill Paice, Craig Bierko, Jennifer Laura Thompson, Jon Cryer, Katie Finneran, Aaron Lazar, Patti LuPone, Jim Walton, Christina Hendricks, Anika Noni Rose, and Chryssie Whitehead. It had a limited theatrical release that began on June 15, 2011.

Robert is a well-liked single man living in New York City, whose friends are all married or engaged couples: 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, though he has wished for nothing, since his friends are all that he needs ("Company"). What follows is a series of disconnected vignettes in no apparent chronological order, each featuring Robert during a visit with one of the couples or alone with a girlfriend.

The first of these features Robert visiting Sarah, a foodie supposedly now dieting, and her husband Harry, an alcoholic supposedly now on the wagon. Sarah and Harry taunt each other on their vices, escalating toward karate-like fighting and thrashing that may or may not be playful. The caustic Joanne, the oldest, most cynical, and most-oft divorced of Robert's friends, comments sarcastically to the audience that it is "The Little Things You Do Together" that make a marriage work. Harry then explains, and the other married men concur, that a person is always "Sorry-Grateful" about getting married, and that marriage changes both everything and nothing about the way they live.

Robert is next with Peter and Susan, on their apartment terrace. Peter is Ivy League, and Susan is a southern belle; the two seem to be a perfect couple, yet they surprise Robert with the news of their upcoming divorce. At the home of the uptight Jenny and chic David, Robert has brought along some marijuana that they share. The couple turns to grilling Robert on why he has not yet gotten married. Robert claims he is not against the notion, but three women he is currently fooling around with—Kathy, Marta, and April—appear and proceed, Andrews Sisters-style, to chastise Robert for his reluctance to being committed ("You Could Drive a Person Crazy"). David tries to tell Robert privately that Jenny did not like the marijuana, after she asks for another joint. "I married a square", he reminds his wife, demanding she bring him food.

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 three 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 fiancé. Finally, Robert meets with Marta; she loves New York, and babbles on about topics as diverse as true sophistication, the difference between uptown and downtown New York, and how she can always tell a New Yorker by his or her ass. Robert is left stunned.

The scene turns to the day of Amy and Paul's wedding; they have lived together for years, but are only now getting married. Amy is in an overwhelming state of panic and, as the upbeat Paul harmonizes rapturously, Amy patters an impressive list of reasons why she is not "Getting Married Today". Robert, the best man, and Paul watch as she complains and self-destructs over every petty thing she can possibly think of and finally, just calls off the wedding explicitly. Paul dejectedly storms out into the rain and Robert tries to comfort Amy, but emotionally winds up offering an impromptu proposal to her himself ("What Did I Just Do?"). His words jolt Amy back into reality, and with the parting words "you need to marry some body, not just some body", 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, someone to "Marry Me a Little".

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