Show Synopsis:
The perpetual bachelor Bobby is turning 30, and his coupled friends are throwing him a party. Through conversations and songs, they explore the ins and outs of love, sex, marriage and what it means to be single. Bobby attempts to figure out where things have gone wrong in his love life and what it is he wants out of being around another person.
Character:
Marta, a young hip girl who loves New York; speaks frankly and would like Bobby to commit to someone.
Song Context:
Bobby has just sung "Someone is Waiting," showing that he is waiting for his dream girl to come along; Marta marvels at the pace of New York and how much it has to offer someone like him. Meanwhile, Bobby goes to meet three very different girls in a park.
Fun Facts:
1) Marta was originally written to be a quintessential outspoken Jewish New York girl, but twenty-one-year-old Pamela Myers astonished the creative team so much in her audition that they rewrote the role and composed a whole song in hopes of making her a star.
2) This is the only song in Company that is not directly concerned with relationships.
3) When this piece was cut out of the show during out-of-town previews due to a long running time, Sondheim anxiously worked to restage it so that four scenes (the song with Marta and the three separate girls Bobby meets in the park) were done almost simultaneously.
"Another hundred people just got off of the train
And came up through the ground,
While another hundred people just got off of the bus
And are looking around
At another hundred people who got off of the plane
And are looking at us
Who got off of the train
And the plane and the bus
Maybe yesterday.
It's a city of strangers,
Some come to work, some to play.
A city of strangers,
Some come to stare, some to stay.
And every day
The ones who stay
Can find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks,
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks,
And they walk together past the postered walls with the crude remarks.
And they meet at parties through the friends of friends who they never
know.
""Do I pick you up or do I meet you there or shall we let it go?""
""Did you get my message? 'Cause I looked in vain.""
""Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain?""
""Look, I'll call you in the morning or my service will explain.""
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
It's a city of strangers,
Some come to work, some to play.
A city of strangers,
Some come to stare, some to stay.
And every day
Some go away
Or they find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks,
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks,
And they walk together past upholstered walls with the crude remarks.
And they meet at parties through the friends of friends who they never
know.
""Do I pick you up or do I meet you there or shall we let it go?""
""Did you get my message? 'Cause I looked in vain.""
""Can we see each other Tuesday if it doesn't rain?""
""Look, I'll call you in the morning or my service will explain.""
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
And another hundred people just got off of the train,
And another hundred people just got off of the train,
And another hundred people just got off of the train.
Another hundred people just got off of the train."