Just when I though I was done with this silly business of love, my February theme by default⿿just when you thought it was safe to peek into the pages of SoloMother and not be pestered and bothered with thoughts on Valentines and sweetness and light⿿the Fates smack me with the stage version of Company, Steven Sondheim⿿s breathtaking look at partnerships and love and marriage and growing into adulthood.

The show left me utterly wrecked, fragile, gasping for air as tears fought their way through to my cheeks. Anyone who ever marveled and despaired at the frailty of love, the impossibility of matching yourself to one heartbeat for the rest of your life, should see this musical. It⿿s billed as a musical comedy, but the humor is wry and biting, sharp as the unwavering examination it makes of the tangled mess we call marriage. ⿿Close to the bone,⿿ is how Sondheim himself describes it, and it is that, and more.

What had me in tears was the final number in the show, Being Alive, sung by the protagonist Bobby, a 30 year old whose friends are all wading through the various manifestations of marriage.

Stephen Sondheim explains one aspect of “Company” that made it controversial when it premiered in 1970 in this excerpt from a 1999 interview for the PBS series BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL.

“Musicals for decades have had … no doubts about the efficacy of a happy ending. And that if you find the right person you may go [on] a bumpy road, rocky road of love, … but it would always lead to bliss. It would lead to the so-called happy ending. We were saying something ambiguous, which is, actually there are no endings; it keeps going on. And it’s always difficult to make a contact with, commit, and live with somebody, and at the same time, it’s impossible not to. But it’s never going to be easy, and it’s never going to be solved, because it’s not a problem that has a solution. It’s not even a problem — it’s just what life is.”

See, that’s exactly it. I’m not looking for fairy-tales and happily-ever-after. This musical’s lyrics shoot straight to the heart of the matter. The cast’s performace is brilliant, absolutely believable. I found myself forgetting to breathe as I watched the spectacle, one part of me enthralled with the storyline, another wondering, ‘how on earth did they think of that??’ (oen word: tuba as a sensual instrument… trust me on this one). I do hope everyone I know, and everyone I don’t know, has a chance to watch this. It’s running in the Great Performances series on public television… there’s a chance your local network will run it in the next few days.

If you don’t catch it, at least the website will give you a glimpse of why this musical is so captivating: watch the cast perform the title song, Company. Or just come over to my house one evening. I’m going to buy the DVD as soon as it comes out; we can all huddle around my computer and eat popcorn and be amazed.

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