‘Here We Are’ Review: Sondheim’s Final Musical Is a Surreal and Starry Feast
23.10.2023 - 04:23
/ variety.com
Naveen Kumar Chasing brunch to the brink of apocalypse is Stephen Sondheim at his most extreme, and the world premiere of “Here We Are,” which opened Off Broadway at the Shed on Sunday, is a study in overabundance. Appetite for the late composer’s final musical, written with David Ives and directed by Joe Mantello, has made it a hot ticket among those familiar enough with the moneyed types depicted onstage to potentially be the butt of the joke.
Though Sondheim made light sport of critiquing bourgeois mores in shows like “Company” and “Merrily We Roll Along,” here the rich are served hot like a bottomless buffet. And let’s cut straight to the sweet stuff: Performances from the pinch-me-this-can’t-be-real cast are like a Broadway gourmand’s fever dream.
Whatever else this deeply strange and Frankenstein-ed musical delivers — which is a lot — the production’s outrageous lineup of stars are as delectably odd as they’ve ever been (yes, even Denis O’Hare). By the time David Hyde Pierce makes a late act-one entrance as a martini-swilling bishop who covets designer heels, the needle on one’s pleasure odometer simply snaps off.
That “Here We Are” ultimately doesn’t know when to stop becomes easy to forgive. Developed over the decade prior to Sondheim’s death in 2021, the musical draws inspiration from two films by avant garde director Luis Buñuel, whose surrealism and social satire bind the show’s two stylistically disparate parts together.
The first act, modeled after “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972), follows a gaggle of frivolous friends (plus a token revolutionary, played with droll militancy by Micaela Diamond) on their frustrated quest for midday repast. Urbane and bizarre, it has the uncanny feel of an
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