I've seen the films on which the two acts of the show are based (Luis Bunuel's films Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Exterminating Angel). Act one is based on the former, in which well-heeled friends can't get food or even a drink from any vendor they visit, for a variety of unlikely reasons. Act two is based on the latter, in which well-heeled guests have eaten a banquet, but, for no apparent reason, cannot exit the dining room. The Met presented a tedious opera that Thomas Ades made of the latter story. These are, for me, arch social allegories. You hear the premise, you get the point; you don't need it drawn out to three hours.
Still, David Ives is dynamite. A student production of his short play All in the Timing gave me ten of the most delightful minutes of theatre I've ever experienced. Montello's production of Assassins set a new standard for that show (see my recent reflection Assassins On-Target 01/2023). And Sondheim made marvelous shows from dry material, such as the history of the industrialization of Japan in Pacific Overtures, and from off-putting characters, such as a cannibal barber in Sweeney Todd.
But when I heard that Sondheim had not completed any songs for act two when he died on the night of Thanksgiving, 2021, I felt relief that we'd be spared a miserable coda to Sondheim's brilliant career.
[Update: The show is "Three hours of sophistication that I've not seen [on Broadway] in 25 years" (W42st.com) says Paul Ford. The teacher who got me into Sondheim in 1974, Paul went on to play piano for the original productions of many Sondheim shows and wrote a book about it, Lord Knows at Least I Was There (blogpost of 04/2022). ]
The corrected story, according to Ives and Mantello, is that Sondheim et. al. agreed that the second act shouldn't have music. "Why would these people sing?" Sondheim said. In the depths of the pandemic lockdown, Ives and Mantello realized that, logically, they wouldn't.
Of course, as my friend Susan observed, "logically," no one should be singing at all in any musical, except that it's billed as a musical. And for half a musical, she said, Mantello and Ives should charge only half price.
All that aside, I treasure the article because Rich presents us with the parts of his conversation that focused on the creative process behind the show. Rich is a longtime theatre critic for the NY Times who interviewed Sondheim on many stages around the country.
Is there any other artist whose every draft of every piece of his work has been so open to public view? I've been lapping up writing about Sondheim's collaborations and personal writing process since 1974, when, at 15, I read Craig Zadan's Sondheim and Company in one sitting. There are dozens of recordings of Sondheim's songs that never made it into shows that never made it on Broadway. He and his collaborators tell all about intentions, first drafts, and fulfillment in interviews, biography, and memoirs (link to my digests of every single book at my Sondheim page).
The story of his exhilaration in the initial stages and the long periods of enervating self-doubt are still models for creatives and, considering that he was still working at 91, touching. His eyes failing, he ordered oversized music paper so that he could see where he was putting his notes. He didn't want to be "a pointillist composer." When Ives fiddled with a lyric, Sondheim mock-objected, "Come on, I'm an icon of the American Musical Theatre!"
The search for a title is part of the story. For years, it's been referred to variously as Bunuel and as Square One. Because Sondheim procrastinated with so many excuses, including an ingrown toenail, someone suggested The Dog ate My Homework. Montello thinks Here We Are fits because it suggests "a destination, a state of being, and also an offering."
For Ives and Montello, Here We Are is a "distilled, smaller-scale version of a life's work" and "a sort of requiem" for Sondheim.
Here's hoping.
I recommend a blogpost by Showriz, clearly knowledgeable and appreciative of Sondheim.
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