Note: In the early 1990s, Furth and Sondheim revised the libretto, cutting and altering dialogue that had become dated and rewriting the end to act one. This synopsis is based on the revised libretto.
ACT ONE
SCENE 1: It's Robert's birthday. He's 35, he lives in New York City and he's single. His friends, most of them married and all of them couples, have gathered at his apartment to give him a surprise party (a party Robert knows about thanks to a careless message left by one of his friends, the neurotic Amy) and to wish him the best. None of them know each other, they just all know Robert, or, as he's alternately known, Bob, Bobby, Robby, Robbo and a variety of other pet names bestowed on him by the ten married people to which he has attached himself. Robert tries to blow out the candles, but they stay lit. It's alright, someone cries, he still gets his wish. What was his wish? Nothing. Not even to be married. Joanne and Larry, Peter and Susan, Harry and Sarah, David and Jenny, and Paul and Amy, his married friends, these good and crazy people, are all he needs ("Company").
SCENE 2: Robert with Harry and Sarah. Robert has brought over some brownies and some bourbon for a nightcap, but Sarah is dieting and Harry is on the wagon, or at least that's what they say. Between needling and taunting each other mercilessly about their respective vices, Harry sneaks glasses of brandy and Sarah hides bites of the brownie. Sarah has been studying karate, and Robert implores her to demonstrate a throw or two. She does so, on Harry. He tries to counter, and they are soon thrashing about in violence that may or may not be playful. The caustic Joanne, the oldest, most cynical and most-oft married of Robert's friends, watches and observes that it is "The Little Things You Do Together" that make a marriage work. After Sarah has gone to bed, Robert asks Harry if he ever regretted getting married. He answers, and the other married men concur, that you are always "Sorry-Grateful", and that marriage changes both everything and nothing about the way you live.
SCENE 3: Robert with Peter and Susan. On their apartment terrace, from which they can sort of almost see the East River. They seem like a perfect couple, apart from her frequent fainting spells. He's Ivy League, she's a southern belle, and they love each other very much. Robert innocently flirts with Susan, telling Peter that if they ever break up, he wants to be the first to know. Well, they reply, he's the first to know. They're getting divorced.
SCENE 4: Robert with Jenny and David, Robert has brought some marijuana along with him. Jenny is rather uptight and David is very chic, and all three puff away feeling very hip and proud of themselves. David declares himself potted and the self-admitted square Jenny talks non-stop before realizing she is completely stoned. The couple, even in their enlightened state of consciousness, finds the strength to grill Robert on why he hasn't gotten married yet. It's not like he's opposed to it. He's looking. In fact, he's found three lovely young women he is currently fooling around with. The women, Kathy, Marta and April appear and proceed, Andrews Sisters-style, to berate Robert for his reluctance to commit ("You Could Drive a Person Crazy"). As the evening at Jenny and David’s comes to a close, David tells Robert privately that Jenny really doesn't enjoy the pot, but she does it to please him.
Everyone it seems is trying to pair Robert off with someone, and each of the deeply-envious men has found someone perfect for a night of pleasure or two. When you can have that, they chorus, why would you want to get married ("Have I Got a Girl For You")? But Robert is happy to put off anything like that for a while. He's waiting for someone, someone who is a composite of all his married female friends, someone who has Amy's sweetness and Sarah's warmth and Susan's blue eyes. She's out there, somewhere ("Someone is Waiting").
SCENE 5: Robert meets his three girlfriends in a small park in the East-Fifties (probably Greenacre Park as Kathy references the waterfall on the wall) on three separate occasions as Marta sings of the city: crowded, dirty, uncaring and wonderful ("Another Hundred People").
Robert meets with April first. She's an airline flight attendant, and not a very bright one. She knows she's boring and dumb, and she's okay with it. She's found a great set-up with an uninterested male friend, and seems happy.
Robert and Kathy meet in a secluded, quiet clearing in the park. She loves it here because it's out of place in the hectic City, just like she is. Robert admits that at the beginning of their past relationship, he would have married her. She admits the same thing, and they laugh at the realization that they both wanted to marry each other before she drops a bombshell: she's going back to Cape Cod to get married. She doesn't belong here; just like the clearing they're in. And then she's gone.
Marta, on the other hand, loves the city. It's the center of the universe. The out-there Marta babbles on about topics as diverse as true sophistication, the difference between uptown and downtown New York, and how you can always tell a New Yorker by his or her ass. Robert is, frankly, left stunned.
SCENE 6: Amy and Paul have lived together for years, but are only now getting married. Amy is in an unprecedented state of panic, and as a celestial soprano (played in the original production by the actress playing Jenny) comments and 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 self-destructs over warm orange juice and burnt toast and the rain and the fact that Paul is Jewish while she's Catholic and finally just refuses to go through with it. Paul dejectedly runs out into the rain without a coat. Robert tries to comfort Amy, but winds up proposing to her: "Marry me and they'll all leave us alone!" His words jolt Amy back into reality, and with the parting words "you need to marry somebody, not someBODY," she runs out after Paul.
Back at the birthday party, 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", praying for an easy, no-strings marriage.
Act II
SCENE 1: At the party, Robert blows out his candles again. This time, he gets them about half out, and the rest have to help him. The couples share their views on Robert with each other, comments that range from complimentary to unflattering, as Robert reflects on living in threes ("Side By Side By Side"), a turn soon followed by the up-tempo paean to Robert's role as the perfect friend ("What Would We Do Without You?"). In a dance break in the middle of the number (or, in the case of the 2006 revival, in a musical solo section), each man in turn does a dance step (or, in the case of the 2006 revival, plays a solo on his instrument), answered by his wife. Then Robert does a step (or, in the case of the 2006 revival, plays two bad notes on a kazoo). No one answers it.
SCENE 2: Robert brings April to his apartment for a nightcap after a date. She marvels ad nauseam at how homey his place is, and he casually positions her over the bed as they share stories about a crushed butterfly and a spoiled date, going through the usual movements associated with casual sex. Meanwhile, the married women worry about Robert. He's lonely, they say, he needs a woman. A real woman, someone like them, not the girl he's with now, who couldn't be more wrong for him. ("Poor Baby"). When the inevitable sex happens, Kathy appears and performs a dance that conveys the difference between having sex and making love ("Tick-Tock"). The next morning, April wakes up to report for duty. She's got to be on Flight 18 to "Barcelona" in a few hours. Robert makes the customary false pleas for her to stay, and for some inexplicable reasons, the pleading works and she does. Robert is less than pleased.
SCENE 3: Robert takes another girlfriend, Marta this time, to visit Peter and Susan's terrace. They've gotten their divorce. Peter flew to Mexico to get it, and it was so nice there he phoned Susan and she joined him there for a vacation. They're still living together. They have too many responsibilities to actually split up, and their relationship has actually been strengthened by their divorce. Susan takes Marta inside to make lunch, and Peter asks Robert if he's ever had a homosexual experience. They both admit they have. Robert asks Peter if he's gay, which he denies, but Peter questions if mankind wouldn't prefer to just "ball it" if it weren't for social norms and wonders if he and Robert could ever have something. Robert, clearly uncomfortable, laughs the conversation off as a joke as the women return.
SCENE 4: Joanne and Larry take Robert out to a nightclub, and as Larry dances, Joanne and Robert get thoroughly drunk. She regales him with tales of her ex-husbands and insults Larry before yelling at some women at the next table to stop looking at her. She blames Robert for always being an outsider, and then berates Larry again. She raises her glass in a mocking toast to "The Ladies Who Lunch", a song judging rich middle aged women, who waste their lives away doing meaningless activities. However, at the end of the song, Joanne realizes she is the worst Lady Who Lunches of them all. She is the type who wastes her life away judging the other ladies, meanwhile doing nothing to improve her own life. Larry takes Joanne's drunken rant without complaint and explains to Robert that despite the fact she's so abusive, or maybe because of it, he loves her dearly. When Larry leaves to pay the check, Joanne propositions Robert. She says, "I'll take care of you", but he replies, "Who will I take care of?" Larry returns, and Joanne tells him, "I just did someone a big favour." Larry and Joanne go home, leaving Bobby lost in thought.
He finally confronts the five couples. Why get married, he cries. What do you get from it but someone to smother you and make you feel things you don't want to feel? But his arguments pale and he finally, finally wishes for someone to share his life with, someone to help and hurt and hinder and love, someone to face the challenge of "Being Alive" with.
SCENE 5: Back at the opening party, his friends waited two hours, but Robert hasn't shown up. Finally, they all get the message and go home, wishing their absent friend a happy birthday. Robert appears alone, smiles, and blows out his candles.
CURTAIN
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