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Mickey Jo
So this is going to be a little bit difficult for me to say. It may be welcome news to some of you, it may be a staggering surprise to others, but I think that I was actually wrong about Here we are. I think maybe it's actually much better than I gave it credit for. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic here on social media and I am particularly obsessed with the world of musical theatre. And within that, there is nothing in this world that I love quite so much on stage as the work of the late, great composer, lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Which is why a few years ago I knew that I absolutely had to go and see the Off Broadway production of his final ever work for the stage, the musical Here We Are, which featured a book by David Ives and many of the final songs that Sondheim would ever write for a stage musical. And at the time, I had a wildly negative experience at the show, both because tonally it represented something that I don't always resonate with in a theatrical setting. I'm talking about surrealism, but also my expectations were entirely in the wrong place. And I'm a firm believer in the fact that setting the right expectations affect your enjoyment of a show. Regardless of whether or not it's great, highbrow, low brow, whatever it may be, it's important to have an accurate sense of what to expect. My expectations were entirely in the wrong place because I was expecting this last great Sondheim masterpiece akin to, you know, the highlights of his illustrious career. And what I felt like I got instead was a day David Ives play with some Sondheim music. And I think there's still a lot of truth in that and I'll elaborate on it a little bit. But a few years later, the show is now making its UK and European premiere with a London production at the National Theatre. And having attended this evening's press night performance, I feel as though I do have a very different perspective on the show. I have watched the two fairly challenging foreign language films that it is based on. We'll talk much more about those. I have also listened to the cast album to try and establish a little bit more familiarity with its challenging musical style. And we can have a whole conversation, and we might in this review, about whether or not that level of preparation and homework ought to be necessary to enjoy a theatrical experience. But at the very least, I feel as though it's prepared me to thoroughly review it for you. So that's exactly what I'm gonna do right now. Here is everything I now think about the final Sondheim musical. Here we are. If you have had the chance to see this, as always, I would love to know what you think in the comments section down below, because I think this has the capacity to be incredibly divisive. I'd be very curious to know if anyone else like me has experienced a shift with this show. I think critics need to feel unafraid to be able to say, you know what? I didn't get it the first time and I get it now. At the same time, is my thoroughly researched return to the show no longer indicative of the experience of the standard theatre goer? These are the questions that we have to ask. But in any case, if you enjoy this one, make sure you're subscribed. Following me on podcast platforms, other social media platforms, notifications on here on YouTube, all that good stuff. Let's get into it. Let's talk about YouTube. Here we are. This show is a collaboration between Stephen Sondheim and David Ives, based on two films by Louis Bruno, the prolific celebrated filmmaker, one of them being the 1972 film the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, the other being the 1962 film the Exterminating Angel. The discrete charm of the Bourgeoisie is, for the most part, what the first act of the show is based on, and it concerns a group of, like, middle class, upper middle class socialites who are repeatedly thwarted in their simple attempts to try and enjoy a meal together. In the first instance, there is confusion about the date that they had agreed on. Then they try and go to a restaurant where they can't be served because the staff are all in mourning. Then they try and go to tea, but the place has run out of just about everything and they can't bring them any drinks. Then they try and have another dinner, but they're interrupted by the military. And when I watched this recently, I felt as though there were levels on which it could be appreciated. You have the superficial level where the film is articulating, sort of playfully the challenge of agreeing on somewhere to eat among friends. But on a deeper level, I think it contends with this idea of the comfortable middle class having to experience in some trivial way the concept of being inconvenienced. And the concept, technically, I guess, of famine, really. Now in the Exterminating angel, meanwhile, another group of wealthy socialites, a larger group, attend a dinner party and find themselves trapped in the room where they are being entertained afterwards, none of them are able to leave, not because the doors are locked, but simply because they can't bring themselves to cross the threshold. And again, the sort of witty, superficial interpretation of this is an exploration of not knowing how to politely dismiss your guests after an evening spent entertaining. But on a deeper level, there's so much that this explores about society, about the darkness of human nature, because they are put in this extreme and challenging environment where they eventually realize that they're running out of water and of food and forced to share this claustrophobic space and, you know, begin to get more and more tense and agitated and many of them very unwell, they are reduced to almost Lord of the Flies esque behavior. And it's also, again, a real subversion of the idea of wealth and class and the protections that that affords them because the very four walls that are mean keep out all of the harsh realities of life are now, you know, enclosed around them and ensuring that they have to experience those realities, like a lack of water and a lack of food and nowhere safe and comfortable to sleep to protect them from sexual danger and ill health and all of these other things. The unavailability of medicine. Really what we're seeing here in both of the films, really, and there's kinship between the two and they're kind of in dialogue here, is this comfortable middle class having to experience the poverties, challenges and indignities of the real world. And that's what connects the two. And I think there is a smartness in seeing both of these and understanding how they could come together into a two act musical on a very trivial level. Again, the in availability of food and the kind of nature of the characters also bridges something of a gap there and allows them to become the same characters in a two act structure. I do still think that it's just a little bit balmy, to say the least, to watch these films and think, oh yeah, brilliant fodder for a musical. But if you look at the things that have inspired Sondheim historically, which include, but aren't limited to an Ingmar Bergman film, the Legends of Sweeney Todd, various plays, a photograph, a painting, you know, it's not the strangest springboard. Now in terms of how these have actually been adapted, for the most part, it's the characters from or versions of the characters from the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie who we meet in the musical, including a priest who is eager to find other work, including a couple of soldiers. And in general, everyone is sort of a modernized Americanized interpretation of those characters. The character of Fritz is a great example of this. In the discrete charm of the bourgeoisie, there is a sister character who is sort of spiteful and indifferent and just eagerly ordering alcohol whenever they go anywhere, and has a visibly limited patience for all of those around her. Fritz takes that to another level as an outspoken anti capitalist, anti fascist activist who is much more involved in the revolution than any of the others realize. One of the key characters in the Exterminating angel is a doctor who attends to those guests who become unwell. And so Paul Zimmer, one of the characters in the show, is a medical professional, but he's a plastic surgeon. So again, it's a contemporary view of wealth and luxury. And who are those rich, perhaps callous upper middle class individuals in society now, to that extent, one of the central characters of Wealth, Leo is a more up to date millionaire billionaire, perhaps in like a designer tracksuit, reminiscent in some ways of some of the leading male figures of those Bunuel films, but also very different. And there are many lines of dialogue directly lifted out of each of the screenplays and put into this musical by David Ives. There are many visual moments which are nodded to, but what we have is a first act where all of these characters simply try and get dinner together and can't, and where they end up in the second act finally having dinner. They then find themselves in a room which they cannot leave. Now there are a couple of Easter eggs that viewers of the film will recognize, including one of the stranger moments of the musical. This is something of a spoiler alert when a bear inexplicably appears in the room in which they're all trapped. This nods to the presence of a bear in the Exterminating angel. But the be makes it into the room. They are aware of the bear moving around the house. And the bear has been seen earlier in the kitchen along with some sheep. And you know, try as I might to analyze all of these films and the musical that has been made of them, I still can't really foist any kind of a meaning onto this. So answers on a post it note or in the comments section down below in terms of what we think the bear represents. In any case, because this is a musical interpretation, Marianne is dancing with the bear. There is a moment actually in the first act where a young soldier who has just met the group is recalling a particularly vivid dream that he had the night before. Absolutely no one has asked him to do this. But the same thing happens in the Bunuel Film the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. They all realize that the food that they're eating is fake, and they're actually on a stage staring out to an audience. The way that this is realized in the theatre is the house lights are brought up and they look out to us and they address us and they acknowledge that they can see an audience for the first time. And this feels like a moment that might have been created bespoke for the show, but it's not. It's very much taken from the film. And it makes sense as the kind of a moment from the film that you would embellish a little for the stage production. It may even have been the moment that inspired Sondheim to turn the whole thing into a musical. It may have been where he saw the viability. In short, I do think some of the most interesting ways to look at this production and to analyze it are in terms of its relationship to those films and in terms of how it functions as an adaptation. And just the concept of bringing two films together and turning them into a cohesive narrative, I think is a really interesting one, especially in the age of, you know, just taking a lot of popular films and musicalizing them. But much of this also feels like the work of the playwright David Ives, who has written the book. Let's talk about the score and the Sondheim of it all. So here's the thing. The disclaimer about this is that the score remains unfinished. And much of what I've always heard about Sondheim is he did a lot of his best work during the preview period. I mean, there are, however, many cut songs from his shows from premiere productions and regional tryout productions that got replaced with different things. He also did great work in conjunction with great directors. Famously, it was Hal Prince who told him that, you know, the way that that scene between Frederick and Desiree was being directed in Little Night Music gave her more thrust, and that it was her who should get a song. Prompting Sondheim to write the song, which wasn't necessarily his greatest theatrical triumph, but was certainly his most, well, Send in the Clowns. And because Sondheim never got to be alive for a. The completion of this score, but also the preview period, the development, the workshops, and, you know, working with director Joe Mantello, you can only imagine the songs that would have come. And really, my overall criticism of this, and I said this at the time off Broadway, and I still feel the same way now, is that there isn't an emerging song even in what I think are some of the weaker and more inaccessible Sondheim scores. There are still emerging songs. I'm thinking about the Best thing that ever has Happened to Me from Roadshow. I'm thinking about Loving you from Passion. I'm thinking about a handful of the songs from Assassins, but, like, Everybody's Got the Right and Something Just Broke. And there is almost a song that could emerge from this score, but it doesn't really feel as though we have standalone songs. It feels as though we have music and then in the second act we don't have music anymore. And that's the other interesting component of this, is there is a point fairly early on into the second act of the musical where the music stops. And they acknowledge this on stage because there is a piano that one of the characters has been playing. And then they note that it is no longer working. And they say, the piano died. And then to the piano they say, rest in peace. And it's an acknowledgement within the piece of the death of Sondheim. And the piano later comes back to life and there's a little bit more music to conclude everything. But I'm not exactly exaggerating when I say that for the majority of the second act, it is just a non musical play. But of the considerable praise that Sondheim has had throughout his career, he is chiefly remembered for his extraordinary lyrics. And there are some brilliant lyrics in this as well. Also worth pointing out that Sondheim is someone who was quite fastidious about marrying a lyric to a melody with an appropriate cadence and with a natural cadence. And it's nice to hear lyrics that fall naturally onto a melody because you don't always get that in contemporary musical theater writing. Charmingly, he seems to have really delighted here in a lot of rhymes about food, which feels very familiar of like a Little Priest, Sweeney Todd. There's a lyric about pigeon made out of pigeon, which feels like, you know, not since shepherd's pie peppered with actual shepherd on top. There's also perhaps a little more lowbrow than some of his usual wit, but very much enjoyed by audiences consistently. A lyric in which a waiter says, we might have a little latte later, but we haven't got a lot of latte now, or to that effect. And it gets even more clever with a lyric I had to turn over a couple of times in my head to actually fully understand it because they're talking about coffees and he says, we're out of caff, to which the response is not even D talking about decaf and then completing the rhyme with Then I'll have a tea or something like that. Another great rhyme in the same song, though I do regret it. If you're thinking beer or wine, forget it. And there's such wit and brilliance in these lyrics that I can't help but smile about them. There are a couple of triple rhyme moments, and I'm always reminded of something that Sondheim wrote about a memory of going to play the song together wherever we go, from Gypsy for an ailing Cole Porter, who was visibly charmed by the triple line that was completed with Amigos Together. And there's a couple of playful triple rhymes in this score as well, playful because they contain expletives. Right towards the beginning of the second act, after they finally had dinner, the character of Paul Zimmer sings, this is a great lyric. I have nothing but praise for the beef bordelays, but she up the glaze on the peas. That same character in conversation with a waiter, earlier contributed to the triple line involving duck out of luck. And now let's talk a little bit about these melodies. There is a particular section of music as the soldier is describing his dream, the introduction to which feels very familiar of one of my favorite Sondheim songs of all time. Children will listen from into the woods as we're sort of going into this dreamlike world and we're hearing Doo, doo doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. I'm just ready to hear, careful, the things you say. Part of that musical moment does have one of the stronger melodies in the piece. And they're singing something to the effect of like, if it's only the end of the world, I butchered it then. But it's a little familiar of the moods of into the woods or perhaps Passion. Something that's always been very interesting about Sondheim as a composer is how disparate the styles of his different scores have been. Something like Sweeney and then something like Follies. There's a lot of other sort of recitative sections of music, particularly in these moments when we see the characters going back to square one, as they say, and standing in a line together. I'll talk more about those moments a little bit later on, but the music that accompanies those is a little bit Assassins esque, a little bit Roadshow esque, as is the song that the bishop or the priest or whatever his rank may be sings when he meets all of them later in the first act, which is another enjoyable song. I do enjoy that one as well. And that's indication enough that I've come a Long way with this show. I didn't enjoy any of this music when I heard it the first time. But it's also Sondheim, and I've been listening to the rest of his scores for so many years, and I can't imagine that I. I got all of them the first time around, or delighted in hearing them all the first time around. I think sometimes, you know, it is necessarily a little harder to digest. There's a couple of lyrical moments. I can't decide whether or not they're Easter eggs. There's a comment about the reds and the blues. And, you know, just because we're listing colors doesn't mean it's a nod to Sunday in the park with George. And there's an aside later about a country house. And Marianne immediately sings Darling to her husband right afterwards. And it does make me think of the song Country House from Follies, which would be real deep cut, but it could also be a coincidence carrying on then. Having hated this show the first time around, I feel I haven't yet really dug into what I enjoyed more about it this time. So let's talk about the strengths of Here We Are. So one of the many benefits of seeing something for the second time, which I do think is my favourite way to see shows before I fully review them, is being able to appreciate all of the foreshadowing at play way. I was a little baffled initially by the cleaning of the stage that takes place before we even begin with Denis o' Hare and Tracy Bennett, who play, over the course of the thing, various different waiters and servants and butlers, the two of them cleaning and wiping and vacuuming this very bare set design by David Zinn, which we'll talk more about. And I think it's actually a smart way of instilling very early this sense of class divide at play here and really defining what their roles are going to be throughout the show. I mean, they're outnumbered, covered by the middle class characters here, as they are, I suppose, in both of the Buluel films. But they represent a really important component of the story. As we go through the first act, Rory Kinnear's character, Leo Brink, has this comedy bit where he keeps feigning a heart attack. And if I tell you that that's foreshadowing as well, then you might have an inkling about what's to come later. Now, I said I'd expand a little bit on these moments where the characters are all standing in a line like it's a chorus line, but for people who are actors and singers first, other than Jane Krakowski, who I absolutely believe could still give you a very convincing Music in the Mirror. These segments reference a recurring visual in the discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie, in which all of these characters are walking together down a road. The production artwork design, which you might be able to see on the back of my T shirt, references the same thing as well. Even though this is not really an image that we get in the stage musical, we see them face on, standing in a line, looking ever so slightly haunted. And there's a sense of foreshadowing here as well, because there's a moment when we see this for the third or fourth time where they go to step out of the line, but they can't. And it's the same sort of reluctance that we will see throughout the second act when they try and leave this room but are unable to prior to that. There's this interesting quality in the way it's been staged, I assume. I mean, this is either from director Joe Mantello or choreographer Sam Pinkleton, where one character will try to move first or begin to move with confidence, look around and then move back. And I think, think this is sort of a commentary on society and the fear of literally stepping out of line and doing something that doesn't fit in with the consensus. I also think I've come to appreciate the thing more as a satire. You know, the first time you see something like this, it just seems so absurd. But there is a through line in criticisms of wealth and class when we go to a lot of these restaurants in the first act, and there's this commentary on French reconstructivist quiz cuisine and then post reconstructivist cuisine critiquing like trendy food fads. There's nods to overindulgent with a restaurant called Cafe Everything, where waiters are referred to as enablers, and the menus are these comically huge books. I do also have to appreciate the really stylish direction here from Germantown. There's one particularly lovely moment visually, when Marianne reveals to the priest in the second act. If you're keeping up here, this is where they are all stuck in the room together, and they have no idea how much time has passed. Everyone else is asleep, and the two of them have a private, intimate conversation, which is really stunning. I actually. I really enjoyed this scene. I enjoyed this scene the first time that I saw the show. It's one of the few things that I did enjoy the first time around. And at the end of this, he presents her with a candle on top of the book that they've just been eating. And even hearing that sentence sounds absolutely ridiculous. But the candle on top of A Tale of Two Cities to constitute a birthday cat cake. And as she blows that out, the fire that has been burning on the floor, which, along with the water bursting out of the wall, is a nod to things that happen in the film that extinguishes at the same time. And it's. It's a lovely sort of semi magical moment. And everything about the set and costume design by David Zinn, also really stylish, really stunning, really vivid. All of these different costume designs, you can tell that these are entirely different people, entirely distinct personalities. And that's very. Apart from the Bunuel films, in which I mean, mean in the Exterminating angel, which is in black and white, it can be hard to even tell them apart. But the set design is probably the visual creative feature that we have to talk about the most. As this Act 2 set that we're going to see sort of static for most of the second act, as they're trapped in it, comes rolling forwards after the interval, it gets genuine applause. And we've been in this very bright white box for most of the first act with different set pieces coming on as we go to these different restaurants, these different cafes. And we've seen a little bit of greenery and grass in two sort of glass cages on either side, representing the existence, I guess, of the real world, which will be referenced later. But that Act 2 set, I mean, it looks like a preserved stately home. It's a thing of real intricacy and beauty. Now, I want to finish my section on the positives of the thing by really interrogating the title Here We Are. Because I think there's a lot that we can find from this. And again, we have this, like, superficial level. And then we have a greater sense of depth as to what it can mean as we move through the thing. And initially, the first time we hear it, I think it's one of Tracy Bennet's waitress characters who says it. Or perhaps she's the. The hostess of one of the restaurants that they arrive at. It might even be the first one, Cafe Everything. And she says, here we are. And it's sort of something innocuous that you say when you arrive to dinner. And so it's that superficial version of like, here we are, like, we've made it, as opposed to what they say every time that they are forced to leave these restaurants. And they say, back to square one. Which I believe was a working title of the musical, Square One. But when we next hear the words Here We Are, they're spoken by Marianne in the second act, and it's while everyone else is sleeping. It's before she enters into this conversation that I told you about before with the priest. And it's her way of saying, here we are, we're here. We ought to be spending this time talking about real things and things of substance rather than the same kind of polite nonsense that they usually talk about. And this is a moment where she, as a character, feels as though she's starting to attain considerably more depth than she's had up to this point. She says, this should be a chance to dig in. And then Here We Are gets a new interpretation again when they begin about this philosophical conversation. I love this scene between the two of them. I think it's brilliant. And she asks the priest for his interpretation of the meaning of life, essentially. And he says one way of thinking about it is, you know, we're here, and that has to mean something. That has to be important. And he sort of finishes this profound statement by saying, we're here until we're not, which feels like a subtler nod to Sondheim's passing within the piece. I do also have to give David Ives an awful lot of credit here for allowing each film to become that little bit more vivid, that little bit more theatrical, but also marrying the two of them so cohesively. And after they reappropriate a priceless Ming vase as a toilet, which, again, something that happens in the Boonwell film, the line that they've added, I'm gonna hit the Ming I. I like. That's just too terrific. However, just because I found many new levels on which to appreciate it doesn't mean I don't think that there are still flaws. So let's talk about some of the musical's shortcomings. Now, I do have to say this evening, and, like, probably half of the London theatre industry was in attendance at this press night, it went down very, very well. And it got an awful lot of laughs from early on. And on a comedic front front, I think it really works. And I think, you know, it probably resonates perhaps even more with British audiences because, you know, it's. It's a little familiar of Pinter. It's also a little familiar of Beckett. And I'll be honest, neither of those are things that I've historically got on well with. I do feel as though the zany comedy of the first act puts Us in a position in the second act where we're very ready to laugh. And there are a lot of necessarily tense situations where, you know, we get laughs very easily coming out of them because we're looking to relieve that tension. And there are a couple of heavier moments that we feel ill prepared for when we suddenly start talking about grief. We've turned a corner perhaps a little too quickly. It's also a challenging post interval shift in as much as how many shows can you name where the first act has no stakes whatsoever and the second act is all very high stakes, where it's like guns and death and threats and hostage situations and terrorists intentions. I also think, having watched the Exterminating angel, that there's a lot of depth and darkness there that I would like to have seen explored here. But it would only continue to be more of a problem coming out of the very silly and whimsical first act. And I think it's thought provoking as an adaptation. I don't know how thought provoking it is as a standalone concept. And I have to at some point acknowledge that. You know, I've come to appreciate this more having seen the two Foreign Languages films that it's based on. And I don't know that I agree with the notion that you should have to do that much homework, that you should have to work as hard as I have worked to meet this show where it is. And I say as hard as I've worked, I've just watched two films. Do we not also think that even though something is an artistic response to other pieces of art, that it ought to be able to stand entirely by itself? And even then, even in considering it as an adaptation, I have to ask a lot of questions of it. I have to ask, you know, what emotions does this actually, actually stir? It can be stylish and it can be witty and it can be highbrow and it can be intelligent and sophisticated. Is this actually making you feel anything? And also, what is it even articulating? What is the enduring message of this? Because while I've told you that there is plenty of criticism of the wealthy and the elite and the middle and upper middle classes at play here, there is also a lot of backtracking on that because the character of, of Fritz, who eats with them, who socializes with them, but who sort of resents them and tries to use them for their money, money that Fritz is funneling into a revolutionary group and Fritz is, like I said, anti fascist, anti capitalist, but also inherently hypocritical and judged Hugely for that by Leo, perhaps the wealthiest character on stage. And there is so much more done to point out Fritz's hypocrisy than there is to point out the immorality of Leo's wealth. And later, Fritz is even moved to speak of Leo with tremendous reverence and sort of changes her mind and decides that Leo actually was of huge importance and that his existence in society was necessary and important, which is a real pivot from the fundamental belief that that much wealth should not belong to one person person. And that feels like a conversation we're really having at the moment. So it's kind of disappointing to see them ease up off of the acceleration here. We get this sense of relief and enthusiasm when these characters are finally able to figure out how to leave this challenging environment towards the end of the musical. But as we cheer for their escape, what are we really cheering for? And it's not the first time that Sondheim has co written a musical that has leveled criticism, criticism in this particular class direction. Because Company was actually kind of revolutionary for its time. Because, you know, in the 70s, the audiences that were going to Broadway weren't expecting to see a show about wealthy Manhattan couples and friends and socialites. If you think about a song like lady to Lunch, really criticizing a lot of their behavior. And it's all very well doing that in the 1970s and having a point to prove, improve. But company is a very different show, one that is drenched in reality and this absurd, surrealist, abstract musical. I don't know that it's really empowered to articulate anything quite as meaningfully. Sadly, I think these characters are generally clowns, caricatures and kind of shallow monsters who inherently just aren't capable of delivering the kind of really valuable truth. Truth that we treasure in so many of Sondheim's characters and lyrics. But speaking of those characters, let's conclude by talking about the performances of this legitimate all star cast. So pretty central to the whole thing is the character of Marianne, played by Jane Krakowski. She was played by Rachel Bay Jones in the world premiere of Broadway production. And while I enjoy both tremendously, I think Krakowski has a little more at her fingertips, this kind of charmingly vapid and shallow wealthy socialite. And she's delightful to watch on stage almost immediately. I mean, my God, the way that she just runs across the stage at the beginning of the Thing is so delightfully wistful. The thing about Rachel Bay Jones is she was really heartbreaking once we got into the second act. And Krakowski gets there as well. But Rachel Bay Jones can't help but be so completely earnest and raw and emotive. And Jane is so good at these contrived characterizations. There's shades of familiarity with Jenna from 30 Rock. There's shades of familiarity with her character from the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. She gets a great laugh for the way that she audibly says the word sigh rather than sighing. You can spend so much of the thing just watching her playing with the flower that she insists on carrying around when she confiscates it back from another character when she's draping herself against walls. And I'd completely forgotten about this joke, but she has some really fantastic dialogue about the notion of getting their dogs cloned so that whenever they go on holiday, they don't have to take them with them, but they can have another set of the same dogs waiting there for them. It's material like that that makes this a really perfect role for Jane Krakowski. Rory Kinnear, I have to say, I'm not entirely sure what he's going for here. I think you can see, like, elements of contemporary millionaires and billionaires and real people that might be influencing this characterization. But, I mean, he's so different from Bobby Kenneth Valet, who played this role originally off Broadway. And I'm not entirely sure I understand who this character now is or that we can really attach to him emotionally. I also think the admittedly very challenging score feels that little bit less secure for him vocally now. I really enjoyed Harry Haddon Payton as the Bishop. This role was originally played by David Hyde Pierce, and I think I can appreciate the characterization even more once it's separated from David Hyde Pierce, because it's quite similar to a lot of the comedic characters that he's played. And so to see it separately, I thought he did a terrific job. He has this interesting quirk where he is obsessed with women's shoes and he finds them beautiful. It's not fetishy, but it's adjacent. Martha Plimpton is someone who I always enjoy on stage. I think she has some of the most limiting material in this role, but I think she does some great work in the second act. Jesse Tyler Ferguson also plays a fairly small role as her husband, Paul Zimmer. The two of them have a great tense rapport. I don't know that Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who began on stage before he was doing the screen work that he is now known for, I don't know that he necessarily disappears into this role. I don't all the way by him as a fatigued plastic surgeon, Much as it pains me to say, he kind of does just feel like a disgruntled gay man who wants to get to brunch and listen, I've been there. He is at his best, though, when delivering these comic over the top one liners. There's a moment where he has a private conversation with the character of Raphael, who is the Mirandan ambassador, and he turns his head forwards and it's something to the effect of like, have they been received? Like, how are the plans going? That's very funny. That character Raphael is played by the brilliant Brazilian musical theater actor Paulo Schott. And he is, as much as anything else, a really fantastic vocalist. There is a brief moment when he is attempting to switch seduce Marianne as he attempts to do with just about every woman that he glimpses in this show, when he almost gets to sink his musical teeth into a nice little bit of song. But for the most part, if this is the only experience that you have of seeing him on stage, you're just going to have to trust me that he has a fantastic voice. Go and listen to or watch the South Pacific revival from the late 2000s. I do have a little bit of a problem with the way that he says, he has this repeated line when he speaks either to the woman that he's already having an affair with or women that he's trying to have affairs with, when he simply goes up to them and says, I have to have you. But the way that he says this, he says, I have her to have you, and with underscore beneath it as well. It just didn't get much of a response. And I can only assume it's because it wasn't really that clearly understood. And when it's the same word repeated twice, when it's I have to have you, I think it's weird to pronounce it differently within that. I kind of get the joke that he's going for with this lothario exaggerated quality to the delivery. I think it steps on the joke a little bit. Cameron Johnson does good, reliable, strong work as Colonel Martin, particularly going into the second act. He is one of the two soldier characters that we meet, the younger being a lieutenant played by Richard Fleeshman. Now he quite quickly enters into a romantic relationship with the character of Fritz, who we had learned very early on in the first act was a dedicated lesbian. And listen, bisexuality exists and I'm more than happy to see that represented by on the stage. But when you have Fritz refusing the advances of Raphael because, and I quote, she's been a gay since she was three, then suddenly falling at first sight for this admittedly attractive soldier. It's giving like lesbian until you meet the right man. And I have no idea what in the jojo Siwa is going on with this. Fritz is also a challenging character because you want to be able to agree. But then there's a moment in the restaurant where Fritz apologizes to the waiter for the way that he's been treated by everyone else, but then is immediately shown to be hugely hypocritical, giving this very sort of bossy and specific hamburger order. Fritz is played, by the way, by the extraordinary rising star Misa Dawnford May, who was recently Olivier Award nominated for her fantastic performance in Natasha Pierre and the Great ComEd of 1812. Just a few years into the industry. She's already done remarkable things. She has a fantastic voice, one of the strongest vocal moments with one of the biggest vocal demands in this show, but also in the characterization, just really committed and fervent. And I enjoy this passionate coming together between her and Richard Fleeschman. It's nice to see him being silly in a Sondheim again. He was so fantastic in the gender swapped revival of Company directed by Marianne Elliott a few years ago in the West End. And when Fritz describes herself as as a trainwreck and he responds by saying, you're the Orient Express of trainwrecks, it's so earnestly delivered that it's just utterly charming. The two of them feel perhaps like a sort of a parody of that kind of ridiculous carousel, instant, huge, overpowering, love at first sight. Musical theatre couples, which Sondheim himself wrote, I guess, with Joanna and Anthony and Sweeney Todd. Here's another great line when the two of them talk about escaping into a cupboard together. Once we're trapped in in the room in the second act when he says we can make love and then kill ourselves. Which is a very light hearted reference to something that is again considerably darker in the Bunuel film. But the real standout scene, stealing performances come from Denis o' Hare and Tracy Bennett, who originated these roles off Broadway and are reprising them in this London production. They play, like I said, servants, maids, waiters throughout the thing. Tracy has a great many wigs and her highlight moment comes in the first act. She doesn't have nearly enough to do in the second second, aside from a few moments of great, like Julie Walters misses overall esque physical comedy. But in the first act, at one point she finds herself in this like medieval page boy wig, mounting a corpse and singing this Edith Piaf esque sort of a chanson. The two of them, Tracy and Dennis, are both gloriously melodramatic. He has so many brilliant different waiter Personas in the first act. It's a little like Roger from American dad as he keeps popping up up in these different outfits with these different silly wigs doing these different silly voices. There's a moment when he's just passing out shrouds and he's just going around to people saying shrouds, anyone? Shrouds? It's so, so funny. The two of them are really delightful. They deliver the strongest moments of the first act, and I think as they get either sidelined or switched into less comic characters in the second act, it's kind of where the tone shifts and it's almost a little bit of a buzz kill. And yet, as I said at the beginning, my buzz entirely killed because, God help me, I enjoyed this a lot more than the first time I saw it. And yet I do feel as though I have lost all objectivity where this show is concerned. And I have no idea if my position on it now at all resonates with the genuine experience of someone going to see it for the first time who hasn't necessarily gone through the labor of watching the films that it's based on. And I I don't know if it's just gonna be one of those acquired tastes. And hey, it wouldn't be the first Stephen Sondheim musical to have that reception for its world premiere production. Do I think that Here We Are will go on to be as prolific and successful a Sondheim score show as his other works? No, not necessarily. But I am glad to have got to a place where I feel as though I understand it a little bit better. And now after nearly 80 minutes of filming, which have hopefully edited down to just a little bit less, that is all that I have to say about this show. But as always, I would love to know what you think in the comments section down below. Have you seen Here We Are in London. Did you enjoy it? Let us all know. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this review. I hope that you have enjoyed if you did, make sure you are subscribed right here on YouTube with the notifications turned on so you don't miss any of my upcoming reviews, including another Sondheim show in London coming later this month. Or if it's easier, feel free to go find me and give me a follow on podcast platforms. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theater. Oh, my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.