If musical theater fanatics were as prone to pugilism as sports fans, you could expect fights to be breaking out at the Shed, where Here We Are, the final musical from iconic composer Stephen Sondheim is receiving its world premiere. There will no doubt be sharp disagreements over whether this posthumously produced work, featuring a book by David Ives adapted from two classic Luis Bunuel darkly satirical films, is a final masterpiece or a deeply flawed, minor addition to the canon. Whether it was essentially finished before Sondheim’s death, as his collaborators claim, or that Sondheim intended to continue working on it. And whether the second act being virtually devoid of songs is intentional, or the result of Sondheim’s sudden demise. Feel free to discuss among yourselves, but please be courteous.
That we’re seeing the musical at all is truly fortunate since even minor Sondheim, which in my estimation this piece feels like on a single viewing (always risky when it comes to his work), puts most other composers to shame. After all, it’s been twenty years since the premiere of his last effort, Bounce (which eventually became Road Show), and nearly thirty years since his last Broadway musical, Passion. Here We Are has been in the works for so many years, with so many stops and starts (not to mention titles) that it was easy to think that we would never see it at all. That it’s finally receiving its long-awaited appearance, in a production benefiting from a terrific staging by Joe Mantello, feels like a gift to be treasured. The dream ensemble includes Francois Battiste, Tracie Bennett, Bobby Cannavale, Micaela Diamond, Amber Gray, Jin Ha, Rachel Bay Jones, Denis O’Hare, Steven Pasquale, David Hyde Pierce, Jeremy Shamos and Adante Carter, almost an embarrassment of riches.
The first act, entitled The Road, based on The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, proves the more musically rich and purely enjoyable. The simple premise involves a group of privileged, elite characters who become engaged in a hopeless quest to have a meal. Several visitors arrive unexpectedly at the home of a wealthy couple (Cannavale, Jones) who apparently have no idea that they were supposed to be hosting a brunch. So they all head off to a series of restaurants, the first being the ironically named Café Everything, which is out of everything on the menu and where even a request for water is met with the stony response, “I will check on that.” The group repeatedly get back in their car and hit the road to the next dining establishment, only to experience frustration and hunger at every turn.
The songs, none of which are identified in the program or the script, are consistently tuneful and delightfully playful, featuring the wittiest lyrics the composer has written in a very long time. The wordplay is consistently hilarious, and if both the music and lyrics too often call to mind previous Sondheim compositions, that doesn’t make them any less pleasurable. Late in the act, when a bishop with a shoe fetish appears and describes himself in song as “a terrible priest,” it inevitably recalls Sweeney Todd’s “A Little Priest.” Sondheim fanatics will probably take part in drinking games based on the numerous callbacks.
Eventually, the group, whose members include a suave foreign diplomat (Steven Pasquale, amusingly oily), take refuge in his country’s elegant embassy, where they finally get to enjoy a feast even as their enjoyment is interrupted by the sounds of a violent revolution occurring outside the premises.
It’s in Act 2, labeled The Room and based on The Exterminating Angel, that the show begins to founder, along with its characters. The food and water soon run out, and the group find themselves trapped in their lavish but increasingly uncomfortable environs, where the lack of plumbing means bodily functions have to be performed in the closet with a Ming vase (leading one of the characters to inevitably announce, “I’m gonna hit the Ming.” With the exception of a gorgeous opening number performed by Jones, there’s virtually no music for the rest of the evening, save for underscoring and occasional fragments, giving the show’s second half the feeling of, well, a typically surreal David Ives comic play, and not a particularly good one. Early in the act, the bishop announces that the piano prominently placed in the room can no longer play, presumably Ives’ way of explaining the paucity of music in the rest of the show. On the other hand, if it was always intended that way, it feels like a mistake.
Although there’s no shortage of funny material scattered throughout the evening, especially as delivered by this killer ensemble, the humor feels broad and obvious, as opposed to the droll deadpan wit of the classic Bunuel films. (Not to mention that satirizing elites has been done to death in the intervening years). There’s little to no emotional engagement with the situations or characters (or more accurately, caricatures), with the exception of a lovely scene late in the evening in which Jones’s peignoir-wearing socialite and Pierce’s priest have a quietly moving encounter. It seems a shame that Sondheim, whose shows have so often been emotionally shattering, chose to go out with this sort of comic trifle, but then again, he often maintained that theater composers tended to do their best work when they were younger. It could be surmised that he chose this broadly satirical material to avoid the pressure of producing a final magnum opus.
Still, it’s a pleasure to once again hear new music from him, and deeply sad to realize it will be the last (except for the trunk numbers that will inevitably turn up). On first listen, it’s hard to imagine that any of the songs will become the sort of cabaret staples that prove unavoidable, but those sorts of expectations have been defied before.
The production, as previously mentioned, couldn’t be better. Everyone will have their favorites among the ensemble, but there’s no doubt that O’Hare practically steals the show as an assortment of servants. Other standouts include Diamond, demonstrating her range as a sexually ambiguous bohemian with revolutionary tendencies after her Tony-nominated turn in Parade and her youngest Cher in The Cher Show; Jin Ha, singing gorgeously as a hunky soldier; and particularly Jones, whose character emerges as the show’s emotional fulcrum. But really, every cast member proves exceptional.
The music sounds absolutely exquisite as orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick and performed by a large unseen orchestra under the expert conducting of Alexander Gemignani. David Zinn’s scenery, chicly minimalist in the first act and sumptuously elegantly in the second, is wonderful, as are his frequently amusing costumes. And it’s hard to imagine any staging more perfect than Mantello’s, whose masterful comic blocking includes a final image that’s somehow both haunting and exhilarating. Sondheim didn’t live long enough to see it, but he certainly would have heartily approved if he had.
Here We Are opened October 22, 2023, at The Shed and runs through January 21, 2024. Tickets and information: theshed.org
