Here We Are: Stephen Sondheim's 'utterly absorbing' final musical
The musical theatre legend's last work is 'witty, wry and suddenly wise'

"So, here it is, and it's hard to imagine it better done," said Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times. Stephen Sondheim's final musical, which he left in draft form, is certainly not his greatest work, and is perhaps not even a musical: more a "surreal drama in which music is part of the texture". But it's still uniquely Sondheim: "witty, wry and suddenly wise". And in its European premiere at the National Theatre, even the work's "unfinished state makes sense". Directed by Joe Mantello, "Here We Are" provides a "bonkers, bitty and sometimes brilliant coda to the great composer-lyricist's work, superbly delivered by a terrific cast".
The plot is drawn from two films by the Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel ("The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" and "The Exterminating Angel"), which have been deftly stitched together by playwright David Ives into two linked acts, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. The first has "tunes a-plenty", but "the supply runs dry-ish after the interval", when the principal characters – a cohort of mostly plutocrat Americans – become "nightmarishly trapped in an ambassador's salon" after a meal. A strange blend of comedy of manners and existential drama, it is a bit like "Sartre's Huis Clos crossed with one of the wackier episodes of Seinfeld", said Clive Davis in The Times. It is "utterly absorbing" and frustratingly imperfect – and at times, it is "very, very funny".
It's quite messy, said Sarah Crompton on WhatsOnStage: it "just about works" if you take it scene by scene. "What makes it magical" are the performances. Rory Kinnear and Jane Krakowski shine as a hedge-fund billionaire and his ditzy interior-designer wife Marianne; and Denis O'Hare and Tracie Bennett multitask to scene-stealing effect as a variety of servants.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
It's also gorgeous to look at, said Alice Saville in The Independent. David Zinn's "astonishingly lavish set design" conjures up "an array of rooms that ought to be preserved in the Met". Ultimately, though, the work is a "beautifully rendered curio" for Sondheim aficionados.
Lyttelton, National Theatre, London SE1
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Lisa Cook and Trump's battle for control the US Fed
Talking Point The president's attempts to fire one of the Federal Reserve's seven governor is represents 'a stunning escalation' of his attacks on the US central bank
-
'Three Pads' Rayner: a housing hypocrite?
Talking Point As real estate moguls go, the Deputy PM is 'hardly Donald Trump'
-
Crossword: August 30, 2025
The Week's daily crossword puzzle
-
Millet: Life on the Land – an 'absorbing' exhibition
The Week Recommends Free exhibition at the National Gallery showcases the French artist's moving paintings of rural life
-
Thomasina Miers picks her favourite books
The Week Recommends The food writer shares works by Arundhati Roy, Claire Keegan and Charles Dickens
-
6 laid-back homes for surfers
Feature Featuring a home near a world-renowned surf spot in Hawaii and a house built to withstand the elements in South Carolina
-
Twelfth Night or What You Will: a 'riotous' late-summer jamboree
The Week Recommends Robin Belfield's 'carnivalesque' new staging at Shakespeare's Globe is 'joyfully tongue-in-cheek'
-
Hostage: Netflix's 'fun, fast and brash potboiler'
The Week Recommends Suranne Jones is 'relentlessly defiant' as prime minister Abigail Dalton
-
Music reviews: Chance the Rapper, Cass McCombs, and Molly Tuttle
Feature "Star Line," "Interior Live Oak," and "So Long Little Miss Sunshine"
-
Film reviews: Eden and Honey Don't!
Feature Seekers of a new utopia spiral into savagery and a queer private eye prowls a high-desert town
-
Critics' choice: Three chefs fulfilling their ambitions
Feature Kwame Onwuachi's grand second act, Travis Lett makes a comeback, and Jeff Watson's new Korean restaurant