It should come as no surprise that Here We Are, the final effort by Stephen Sondheim, is unlike any other work from the late master of the American musical theater. Never content to examine the same subject matter or to repeat his style, each of the masterpieces and near-misses in Sondheim’s canon are unique, save for the brilliance and daring they all share. Sweeney Todd is nothing like Company. Follies does not resemble Assassins. Pacific Overtures is not a mate to Sunday in the Park with George.
Here We Are is something different from all that come before it, not only from Sondheim’s previous output but from the run-of-the-mill Broadway fare. It’s not perfect, but it is adventurous, ambitious, and a welcome change from jukebox shows and movie blockbuster retreads. With David Ives’s clever book, Joe Mantello’s ever-flowing direction, a cast of amazing reliables, and David Zinn’s versatile and attractive set design in the Shed’s Griffin Theater, Here We Are is exciting and challenging theater.
The show has been in development for years and it does seem as if Sondheim was not quite finished with the score. It contains fewer songs than you would expect in a two-and-a-half hour show, but we should take what gems we can get. And somehow, the shift in perspectives from the melodic first act to the song-starved second works in its favor.
The story is a surrealist melding of two classic Luis Buñuel films. In the first act, based on “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” a group of moneyed elites wends their way to various eateries from brunch to dinnertime, unsuccessfully seeking sustenance. Everywhere they go, there is no food available. Along the road, they pick up representatives of the military and the clergy, making their group into a microcosm of society as norms break down. The second act is derived from “The Exterminating Angel” where the company finds, for some unknown reason, they cannot leave the luxurious confines of a room in an embassy and eventually descend into barbarism.
Buñuel’s films examined the existential question of identity when material possessions and comforts are stripped away. The musical makes the same inquiry, a little too much and too often. The book could use some cutting (maybe one less restaurant visited) and the plot can meander into obscure dead ends, such as a puzzling dream sequence with a dancing bear. Fortunately, there are numerous funny and moving moments in Ives’ mostly sharp adaptation which involves drug cartels, revolutions and pointed social satire. Sondheim’s music is as oddly beautiful as ever, but one longs for more intricate wordplay in the lyrics (a waiter promising “a little latte later” is a highlight.) Each of the successive restaurants in Act One has its own signature musical motif, along with elegant minimal sets by Zinn and appropriate atmospheric lighting by Natasha Katz. Zinn also did the humorous costumes. There’s also a lovely duet for the rebellious spoiled rich daughter and a ramrod soldier (magnificently sung by Micaela Diamond and Jin Ha) as well as an ironically spritely group number introducing the characters and their rarefied lifestyle.
One of Ives’s funnier gags is that the richest pair of the group is getting their dogs cloned so they can have a set of each pets at their various homes. “But which ones are real?” asks a friend. “They’re all real,” comes the reply.
The cast is chock-full of zingy, zesty almost caricature-ish portraits which become more human as their luxuries are removed. Most outstanding are the delightful Rachel Bay Jones as a feather-brained but lovable interior decorator who doesn’t know the difference between rococo and baroque; and Denis O’Hare and Tracie Bennett who bring a tangy bite to their multiple roles of various servants and waitstaff. In addition to a marvelous Diamond and Ha, there’s pleasure to be derived from David Hyde-Pierce’s ladies-shoe-loving bishop, Bobby Cannavale’s crude but charismatic financial manipulator, Steven Pasquale’s hilariously randy diplomat, Francois Battiste’s ramrod colonel, and Jeremy Shamos and Amber Gray’s bickering, high-powered couple.
