Theatre review: Here We Are

Stephen Sondheim's final completed musical makes its UK debut at the National with a transfer of Joe Mantello's original off-Broadway production, although "completed" might be a bit of a stretch: The composer had given permission for this version to be staged, but mainly because he was aware he was unlikely to live to write a final version. So we end up with a show whose music and lyrics are very recognisably Sondheim, but which doesn't actually have that many songs mixed into David Ives' book. Inspired by two films by the avant-garde filmmaker Luis Buñuel, Here We Are looks at first to be a fairly straightforward social satire of the criminally rich: Leo (Rory Kinnear) and Marianne Brink (Jane Krakowski) are surprised by a visit from Marianne's sister Fritz (Chumisa Dornford-May.)

Also there are their friends Claudia (Martha Plimpton) and Paul (Jesse Tyler Ferguson,) as well as the monarch of the fictitious European principality of Miranda, Raffael (Paulo Szot,) all expecting a brunch the couple have no recollection of inviting them to.

Instead they go out to find a restaurant, but while their status means they can get in anywhere, everywhere they try seems to be having an existential crisis - from the café that serves everything except whatever they've ordered, to the bistro trying to keep going despite the chef's recent death. Along the way they also collect a dreamy (in the sense that he wants to tell you all about this dream he had, not just the sense that he's played by Richard Fleeshman) Soldier, his Colonel (Cameron Johnson,) whose parents Leo murdered many years earlier, and a Bishop (Harry Hadden-Paton) with a shoe fetish.

Tracie Bennett plays all the remaining female roles, including a maid with a distinct air of Mrs Overall about her, and understudy Edward Baker-Duly all the male ones, including a violent revolutionary intent on overthrowing capitalism. This revolt happens in the background of Act II, inspired by a second Buñuel film, in which all these characters end up stuck together in the Mirandese Embassy, trapped by an unseen force.

I doubt Here We Are will be going down as one of Sondheim's career highlights, not least of all because there's so few Sondheim songs in it, and those there are are fun but functional to the story with no standouts. Ives' story also ends up, perhaps unsurprisingly, a fairly muddled satire of the wealthy classes, although some of the more casual elements - like Leo, Paul and Raffael actually being the heads of an international drug cartel, the real source of their money and treated almost as a throwaway plot point - are where the real bite is.

But Mantello's production makes the most of the material, even turning the weaknesses into strengths. The opening scenes in David Zinn's clinical white box set don't prepare you for quite how surreal a turn events will eventually take, and after a while you just sit back and let the madness wash over you. Of course, not since Angels in America has the Lyttelton hosted a cast so many of whom could have single-handedly served as the star attraction, and they all live up to their billing.

So Kinnear quietly steals scenes as the irritable, entitled billionaire belching in a corner, Plimpton and Ferguson are the picture of air-kissing artificiality, while Dornford-May and Fleeshman flirt by singing impossibly long notes at each other. Krakowski has always been a comic highlight on screen and it's no surprise that she's the same on stage, Marianne's wide-eyed, dazed optimism shining through in memorable scenes like the one where the Soldier's dream reveals them all to be in a play, and while everyone else becomes self-conscious she looks out into the audience in undiluted joy.

The shortage of songs alone means this won't be considered a Sondheim classic and the weirdness of the story doesn't quite translate into something more profound, but this visually striking production - Zinn's costumes are great at encompassing each character in a single look, plus it's fun when the script finally acknowledges that Krakowski's spent the entire show in her nightie - is fun enough to live up to at least some of the inevitable hype.

Here We Are by Stephen Sondheim and David Ives, based on The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie by Luis Buñuel & Jean-Claude Carrière, and The Exterminating Angel by Luis Buñuel, is booking until the 28th of June at the National Theatre's Lyttelton.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.