I Hope You Get To Meet Joanne

Joanne's offer in Company | Plus, a Sondheim/space crossword and more from our conversation with Colden Lamb

There is an exchange near the end of the nightclub scene in Company that is often overlooked, perhaps because it happens so quickly between two large set-pieces. Joanne has just finished “The Ladies Who Lunch.” She has watched Larry pay the bill and leave the table. And then she turns to Robert and says: “When are we gonna make it?”

If you’re currently a free subscriber, consider upgrading to a premium subscription for full access to The Sondheim Hub: an exclusive essay, extended interview, crossword & more each week — plus, our complete, paywall-free library of 250+ essays, features & interviews.

---

We tend to discuss Joanne as Bobby’s dark mirror — the character who has consciously chosen the emotional coffin that he is inching towards. That reading is correct, but it undersells what Furth and Sondheim are doing in this scene. Joanne is much more than a cautionary exhibit. She is perhaps the show’s most actively dangerous character, and the nightclub scene is her attempt at recruitment. She offers Robert something that looks, from a certain angle, exactly like what he has always wanted: intimacy without consequence, connection managed at a safe remove. An affair with a married woman is the perfect architecture for a man who wants company without commitment. Joanne knows this. She has designed the offer accordingly.

What she has not designed for is his answer.