Tonicization, Sacrifice, Key Changes and Saying Goodbye
On letting go (or not) in the Here We Are Finale
In DT Max's Finale, Sondheim discusses a moment in the beginning of Act Two of Here We Are where he was puzzling his way through a particular tonicization of a note.
"What I am essentially doing in going from A major to A-flat, which is a halftone away, which is an odd progression, ordinarily the kind of thing you don't do, but there is a relationship between them, because A major contains G-sharp and E. And if you change the E to an F, suddenly, guess what? You have A-flat and F. So with a half-step change in the melody or, in this case, in an inner voice, you have gone from China to England"
He goes on to explain that the point of such exercises is to make something that is "surprising, but inevitable" to the audience. This musical sleight of hand is not just an interesting bit of trivia - it provides us with a neat metaphor that we can use to frame the play. Just as Sondheim 'borrowed' the 'F' from A-flat to open new harmonic possibilities, the 'core six' borrow ideas, values, and even virgin forests from wherever they can. They gleefully pile on more dissonances, leaving the resolution of these issues for 'someone else' to fix. The "core six" in Here We Are continually seek new experiences, relationships, and material comforts, much like how music might continually tonicize different chords. This search for novelty prevents them from establishing a stable "tonal center" in their lives - both individually and collectively. In the same way excessive tonicization can make a piece of music feel ungrounded, the characters’ lives lack a central purpose or meaning. Their wealth and social status provide material comforts but not emotional or existential stability. The characters' relationships are fraught with betrayal, superficiality, and existential angst. Their inability to find lasting satisfaction parallels the instability caused by too much musical modulation. What's more, by being used to meet the whims of the "core six" these 'artificial' tonicized harmonies don't address the fundamental discrepancies between the characters material conditions and their needs - the resolutions gear toward novelty and surfaces not stability and depth. Tonicization allows the characters to resolve the discrepancies that arise out of this conflict without shifting out of the key that they are in. If we think back to what it means to change keys, you'll remember that changing keys requires being comfortable with a degree of change and loss; during a key change, the constituent tones either change position or shift in or out of the key. Despite their schemes and infighting, the core six is undeniably at the top of the heap and any change to the overall system would inherently threaten their percieved stability and are reticent to "let go" of the possibilities afforded them by their current position. Thus, by attempting to hold on to their stability, the core six thus are doomed to approach meaning without arriving at it, becoming increasingly unstable as their position of privilege and status is undermined by the amount of tonal accomodation required to support it.
This is precisely why it makes sense to treat the music leaving act two is firmly an artistic choice that Sondheim signed off on (as has been extensively reported) and not a desperate attempt to put on the show in an incomplete state (as has been extensively speculated). The characters needed to be deprived of their traditional means of wriggling out of engagement. They can not fake a harmony - there is no other tones than those available in the room. By navigating the discrepancy between material needs and resources the character's find themselves finding novel ways to fulfill basic necessities. As we discussed earlier, survivor's camp gives us a useful way to analyze how the "kludges" necessary to move through this delta. Let's consider a fairly straightforward example. Once the characters run out of food Marianne finally resorts to eating the begonias that had been decorating the terrible. From a mouthful of petals she assures the rest of the group (guardedly) that "they taste terrible". Marianne's need for basic sustenance has forced her to literally "take in" the decor she had steadfastly refused to acknowledge existed beyond the surface.
While in the room, Marianne gamely engages with everyone - she plays charades with the group, entreats everyone to give up their secrets and of course, most significantly chooses to have a conversation with the Bishop about the nature of being. When the Bishop quips that the crumpled pages of A Tale of Two Cities is now nourishing in "more ways than one" we are to understand that he has had a preexisting relationship with literature. Presumably this relationship has informed his position as someone who has already internalized significant lessons learned from art and can now share them with others. Marianne, with no other tones to escape to, turns to the ones in the room with her and finds not just a single answer but a plurality of possible answers of what it means to "be".
It's not a coincidence that the next scene the characters all reach their breaking points - as everyone hits a wall they begin to break down over what regrets they had "out there". Everyone except Leo - the one that led the toasts, got everybody back in the car - in short, the integrator. Although he reveals to the Colonel that he shot his parents and acknowledges that he had wronged him, Leo refuses to apologize (or as he puts it, be a victim) to anyone else for anything and promptly dies.
When Leo dies, the group finally loses its center- and despite all the bombastic promises they throw towards each other Fritz and the Soldier fail to bring about a new order together. As it turns out his deference to authority made the Soldier a poor match for Fritz, and thus the "new" road song lightly hinted at in their "Double Duet" never comes forth. While it may yet arise, Fritz simply isn't ready - as Leo warned them, "burning stuff down is easy, but you better have an idea of something to do with the ashes".
While everyone else is arguing over who should be sacrificed to appeas the gods (Rafael's suggestion), Marianne notices the characters have returned to the positions they were in when they decided to stay in the room (Hesitation (Reprise)). Although she doesn't know why, she intuitively understands that everyone has to say the last thing they said before choosing to stay. The group, ready to try anything, gives it a shot. One by one, they each say their line - necessarily skipping over Leo in the process (on account of him being dead).
I'm going to pause here to point out that Rafael's suggestion was actually correct, only the sacrifice was Leo's failure to surrender his pride and succumbing to death. In doing so, he essentially sacrificed himself to his principles, satisfying the dark old gods of the key change, surrendering his position as center allowing a future where things can be more equitable without his "capitalism" getting in the way.
As Fritz observes upon Leo's death - he was necessary. The gods of narrative convenience (the fourth wall having long since been obliterated) simply bring Leo back to life so that he can say his part - "Alright everybody, back to square one!". The new "key" that emerges - the final hard-won synthesis at the end of this extremely long dialectic process still has Leo, the rest were able to rearrange enough to stay in the key as well - mostly. Although the Bishop, the Lieutenant and the Colonel all get a chance to say goodbye to the "core six" after they escape, the man and the woman are nowhere to be seen. The new key - the higher one that the dialectical process "ascends to" is better, but there's still not room enough for everyone.