'Company' plays with marriage

Author: Penny Chen

Following the sold-out run of "Falsettos" last year, the Music Department is producing its second musical. This year, they have chosen "Company," a "concept musical," or a musical made up of short vignettes connected by one theme that breaks all the rules of traditional music theater.

Written by George Furth with music by Stephen Sondheim, "Company" revolves around a 35-year-old bachelor named Bobby (Adam Beard '06) in 1960s New York City. Bobby, unlike the prototypical musical comedy hero, is ambivalent toward love and disinclined to commitment. In trying to determine whether or not marriage is right for him, he examines five married or soon-to-be-married couples. This sets the stage for comic scenes and musical numbers while also conveying an image of 1960s New York lifestyle.

The music featured in "Company" is of more or less the same quality as that in most other musicals. It is, however, the role of the songs in the musical and its general plot, or lack thereof, that makes this production stand out from your everyday run-of-the-mill musical like "Annie Get Your Gun," "Oklahoma!" or "Fiddler on the Roof."

The conventional formula followed by most musicals was first established by Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960), who wrote classics such as "The Sound of Music," "Show Boat," and "The King and I." The no-fail equation was this - dialogue, emotion, more emotion, so much emotion that the characters cannot contain themselves anymore and must break into song.

This show, on the other hand, leaves behind this classic notion of musical theater. In "Company," there is no song to be broken into. Instead, an unrelated character stands outside of the main scene and uses the song to comment on the action, on himself/herself and also on love, commitment or marriage. Removed from the on-stage drama, the character is able to provide a different viewpoint of the situation.

The Middlebury College Music Department's production of "Company" will open this Friday at 8 p.m. Directed by Visiting Professor of Musical Theater Doug Anderson, the performance will undoubtedly attract attention. As Nora Williams '06 (Jenny) says, it is basically "drugs, sex and musical theater with, college kids playing married adults."