Trickster Starts Out Hungry
Dining without Eating in "Here We Are"
Ever since the advent of movies and television, theatergoing has increasingly become either a dutiful activity for a dwindling, aging audience or an occasional festive night out, the purchase of hard-to-get-tickets being its greatest pleasure. Broadway theater, formerly the fount of new American plays, has for many years been focused predominantly on musicals, chiefly two kinds: stolid solemn uplift equipped with impressive lumbering spectacle, and elaborate concerts of familiar pop songs threaded along a story line, a genre familiarly known as the "jukebox musical," which the critic Stephen Holden has characterized as "karaoke hell". (As I write this, a third kind has recently overrun the theater like kudzu: the self-referential "metamusical," which makes fun of its betters by imitating their clichés while drawing attention to what it's doing, thus justifying its lack of originality without the risk of criticism) (Sondheim, Finishing the Hat - p xxi)
The preceding quote is from the introduction to the 2010 anthology of Sondheim's complete lyrics, "Finishing the Hat", which gives the composer's characteristically sunny outlook on the state of theater. Shortly after wrapping up the anthology he began working in earnest on what would become "Here We Are." As he tells D.T. Max in Finale, he noticed an interesting new shift in entertainment in New York. Max asks Sondheim if the adaptation of "Discreet Charm" was something he was "working on for a long time" to which he replies:
Actually, it stems from a remark Hal Prince made in a cab once. We were looking out at night, coming back from the theater or something, and he was looking around Park Avenue on the way to the Upper-Middle East Side, and he said, "You know what the dominant form of entertainment is?" Eating out." [laughs]. Because all the restaurants were lit up --- it was about ten thirty in the evening, and that's what people were doing. They weren't going to the theater. They were eating! And I thought, "Gee, what an interesting idea." And I didn't think, "Oh, that would make a musical." But somehow what happened was, David [Ives] and I started to write another show (ed. All Together Now), and we bogged down and aborted it for numerous reasons- and we had talked about Buñuel at one point. So that's how the idea arose. Dave was looking for something and I was too. (Max, Finale, p88-89)
So although the idea to adapt Buñuel (alt+0241, kids!) had been around for decades, the specifics of this interpretation - the one that ultimately became Here We Are - were not something he had considered himself to be "working on for a long time" in 2017 when the interview took place. Prince's timely observation provided a framework for Sondheim and Ives to explore how theatergoers are going out and not being "fed". In adapting Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Sondheim and Ives map each restaurant the characters visit to (a version of) one of the criticisms of modern theater culture that Sondheim observed in Finishing the Hat.
Café Everything ("jukebox musical")
Café Everything symbolically mirrors the concept of a jukebox musical by promising a menu with "everything"—an enticing claim to theatergoers and diners alike. However, like many jukebox musicals, this broad promise masks a lack of substantive offerings, as the restaurant is completely out of food. At the heart of the experience at Café Everything is the "Waiter's Song," which showcases Sondheim's familiar lyrical wit standing in for the familiarity of top 40 radio hits. The most memorable line, 'We do expect a little latte later but we haven't got a lotta latte now,' serves as a synecdoche for the entire interlude at the restaurant. It pleases the crowd without providing deeper insight or value, epitomizing the superficial enjoyment often found in jukebox musicals.
Bistro à la Mode ("stolid solemn uplift")
Bistro à la Mode serves as the play's representation of "stolid solemn uplift". The restaurant, once known for its deconstructivist menu where items were whimsically disguised as other things (e.g., ordering flounder to receive steak), now adheres strictly to the truth of its offerings—boeuf is simply boeuf, as declared by the new guiding principle: "it is what it is."
This shift highlights a broader critique of modern theater's trend towards presenting the raw and unembellished truth, where the spectacle of high-concept art gives way to more grounded and often somber narratives. The discovery of the restaurant's chef, Philippe, dead and laid out for the coroner, exemplifies this shift. The patrons are forced to confront the finality and starkness of death head-on, mirroring the unvarnished presentations in contemporary theater that seek to evoke profound, sometimes uncomfortable, reflections on life.
The song "It Is What It Is," performed by the waitress in an Edith Piaf-like pastiche, melodramatically yet powerfully captures this theme. It is a lament for the lost whimsy and a bold acceptance of the new reality. This song confronts the patrons—and by extension, the audience—with the unadorned truth, reflecting the stolid and solemn narratives that aim to uplift by grounding viewers in the realities of the human condition, however harsh they may be.
Osteria Zeno ("metamusical")
Osteria Zeno acts as a "metamusical" and encapsulates, like Zeno's paradox, the experience of our characters perpetually approaching meaning (or in their case, a meal) and never arriving at it. This is highlighted by the full meal they are sat down turning out to be nothing more than rubber brie and cherry soda.
The group are interrupted by Colonel Martin and the Lieutenant - the latter of whom shares his dream in "The Soldier's Song". Fritz instantly falls in love with him and they express, with the Lieutenant, their doomed love as the world supposedly ends. The performance peaks when the Lieutenant reveals that in his dream he realized his entire existence was a play. At that moment the houselights come up on the audience, breaking the fourth wall and making the characters aware of their existence on a New York stage.
This moment in "The Soldier's Song" not only disrupts the narrative but also forces the audience to confront the constructed nature of the play, blurring the lines between performance and reality - certainly "drawing attention to what they're doing" in the process.
Although the play chiefly is interested in exploring the limitations of the modern state of theater, it's also worth noting the ways in which the play explores the lack of engagement with art beyond its own artform.
Most of the non-theatrical commentary occurs in Act Two during the character's entrapment. Consider Marianne and the Bishop eating a crumpled up copy of A Tale of Two Cities as if it were popcorn once they run out of food, or Paul's lament that at the Louvre he was more concerned about the amount of art there was to see than the art he was looking at.
Of course, in critiquing these forms, the play also becomes exemplar of each. The play's meta-theatrical approach challenges us to reconsider what it means to be 'fed' by art. Are we, like the characters, merely going through the motions of consumption without nourishing our deeper needs for understanding and connection? As we step out of the theater—or from reading about it—how do we carry these reflections into our engagement with art and culture?