Sondheim Easter Eggs in 'Here We Are'

Stephen Sondheim’s final musical Here We Are, which opened at the Shed in October 2023, was filmed by the Library for the Performing Arts’ Theatre on Film and Tape Archive that December, and the recording is now available to view for free at the Library. Adapted from two films by Spanish-Mexican filmmaker Luis Buñuel, the musical is a surrealistic exploration of existence, death, and whether there actually is any reality beyond superficial appearance. The score, as some critics noted, sometimes seems to quote the composer's earlier work. Director Joe Mantello, book writer David Ives, and perhaps even Sondheim himself seem to have embedded “Easter eggs” in the book and staging that call to mind Sondheim’s earlier shows. Below are a few examples of these callbacks.

As he describes his dream, the Soldier sings of a girl with “a name that was like music,” a line that calls to mind the lyric from West Side Story: “Maria! Say it loud and there's music playing.” 

In the same sequence, the Soldier’s mother appears carrying a sheep. The moment calls to mind Rose in Gypsy, a mother character who, like the Soldier, also claims to have “had a dream” which she describes to others. Rose, likewise, gives a lamb to her daughter Louise. 

When the Soldier’s dream shifts to a stage set and it’s revealed that the sheep is stuffed, the sheep prop that is pulled across the stage bears more than a passing resemblance to the cow Milky White from the original Broadway production of Into the Woods.

When the company finally reaches the Morandan Embassy, the butler, Windsor, “jokes” that the cook suggested serving the Ambassador for dinner. Immediately thereafter the Bishop enters and sings a song about the different careers he might switch to. Throughout his song, he constantly reminds the assembled dinner guests that he is “a terrible priest,” lest the ravenous diners wonder about his taste and make good on the Sweeney Todd-esque cannibalistic proposition of the butler.  

When Windsor, revealed to be the revolutionary leader Inferno, takes over the room of trapped guests in the second act, he brandishes the Colonel’s gun. Denis O'Hare, Windsor's actor, illustrates a claim he delivered as Charles Guiteau in the 2004 Broadway production of Assassins: "First of all when you've a gun/ Everybody pays attention!" The connection between the shows is made stronger when the gun is brandished a second time and Fritz is revealed as  an agent of the insurgency group PRADA. The Bishop asks, “Not the shoe?” Sondheim fans may at this moment of gunplay continue, “Well, actually, the shoe was too!”

When the water runs out in the room in Act 2, the maid, McGogg, grabs the bishop’s staff and strikes the wall. It is, of course, echoing the Biblical story of water from the rock in Exodus, but is also reminiscent of the supposed miracle of water from the rock in Anyone Can Whistle.

In Passion, Fosca asserts, “I do not read to think,” but rather, like a butterfly avoiding the poison at the bottom of a deadly flower, skims only the surfaces to avoid the pain of thinking too deeply about what she reads. The metaphor of eating flowers and books is literalized in this scene by Marianne, a character whose final song is about her love of “surfaces” and who towards the end of the play eats a white rose, then joins the Bishop in a meal of pages from A Tale of Two Cities. 

While Marianne and the Bishop eat the book they discuss the nature of existence. The Bishop explains that most philosophies acknowledge the existence of earth, of other people, and of objects, “like those beautiful satin slippers,” which Marianne wears and the Bishop covets. Marianne, like the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods, who also covets a pair of expensive slippers in the song “A Very Nice Prince,” responds, “Yes—and?”

Other connections are a little less obvious. Though derived from the Buñel films, the versions of the characters in this musical could equally have been taken from Sondheim’s Company. They are literally the Ladies (and gentlemen) who Brunch. They are the “company” who come in after a door chime. Fritz resembles Marta, and Marianne resembles both April and Amy. The husbands, virtually interchangeable in Company, could also be played by almost any of the men in Here We Are. These are the same kinds of people whom the actress Gussie calls “The Blob” in Merrily We Roll Along, a group that Franklin Shepard, the central character, eventually joins. They represent, as Sondheim himself said, the community into which he was born and, arguably, the community that celebrated him as one of the most sophisticated musical theater composers of the 20th century. Here We Are, written at the end of his life, critiques and also predicts the imminent end of this world.

If Sondheim and his collaborators reprise a medley of moments in the composer’s career in this final musical, they are in some ways incorporating their own lives and work into this world facing execution by an exterminating angel. Here We Are, like the surrealist films on which it is based, does not attempt to explain or justify this world. In fact, the musical suggests that absurdity cannot be explained. Like a dancing bear in the middle of the night, or a restaurant concealing a funeral for its main chef in a party room, explanations or excuses may not exist. But the existence of these things, or at least the appearance of their existence, is undeniable. However we got here, here we are. 

Images used in this post from the Friedman-Abeles Collection have been preserved, cataloged, and digitized through the generosity of Nancy Abeles Marks and the Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust.