Last Updated on November 26, 2025
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
Here We Are – Sondheim’s Surreal Farewell
In the Ladies’ after the show, a queue of theatre-goers traded hot takes while waiting their turn – “utterly bonkers, like a surreal dream,” one declared, and she wasn’t wrong. Here We Are, Stephen Sondheim’s final musical, now landing at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton stage in a swirl of feverish anticipation, is exactly that: mad, disorienting, and defiantly dreamlike. A posthumous collaboration between Sondheim, director Joe Mantello and writer David Ives, it plunges us into a fragmented, looping satire of modern manners, privilege and existential absurdity – delivered with that unmistakable, tantalising Sondheim flair.
Stephen Sondheim’s final musical was, perhaps inevitably, too strange and too smart for Broadway. Instead, Here We Are premiered at The Shed, New York’s experimental arts space, in 2023 – part curiosity, part holy grail. Based loosely on two surrealist films by Luis Buñuel, it won admiration for its ambition and eccentricity, if not for being a fully polished piece. The first act, inspired by The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, brims with sharp wit and classic Sondheim flair; the second, based on The Exterminating Angel, is more elusive, stranger, and lighter on songs. But who cared? This was new Sondheim, something we’d been told we’d never get again. And now, what a thrill, what a rarity, and what a bold stroke by Rufus Norris to bring it to the National as the jewel of his final season.
And with a splendid cast, Joe Mantello’s assured direction, and inspired choreography by Sam Pinkleton, Here We Are springs to vivid, ridiculous life. Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations, conducted by Nigel Lilley – sumptuous, sly, and effortlessly elegant, wrap the whole thing in that unmistakable Sondheim shimmer. It really works. Against all odds, this surreal fever dream of a show is not only coherent, but extraordinarily funny, sharp as a stiletto and just as stylish.
A clever set and spot-on contemporary costumes by David Zinn complete the picture, shifting the stage from a gleaming white mirrored box – sterile, uncanny, and strangely beautiful, to brightly coloured, neon-lit spaces representing a series of restaurants, and finally into the richly upholstered interior of what could be a decadent stately home, all velvet, oil paintings, and overstuffed entitlement. It’s all lit to perfection by Natasha Katz’s superb lighting design, which moves effortlessly between clinical surrealism and opulent warmth.
The narrative for Here We Are follows this group of well-heeled friends as they spend the first act in search of a meal – an increasingly absurd quest thwarted by social mishaps, invisible staff, and surreal barriers. Leo, a billionaire hedge funder, is played with smooth assurance and just the right amount of detached entitlement by the ever-brilliant Rory Kinnear. He glides through the chaos with the calm of a man used to having the world bend to his will – even when dinner remains maddeningly out of reach. By his side is his glamorous wife Marianne, an interior decorator who seems to curate not only her home but her entire existence. Jane Krakowski brings her to life with effortless poise and razor-sharp comic timing, inhabiting the role with such sparkling confidence that she feels lifted straight from the pages of a high-end lifestyle magazine, only with better punchlines.
Alongside Leo and Marianne is Marianne’s lefty kid sister, Fritz, convincingly portrayed by Chumisa Dornford-May with a blend of awkward earnestness and youthful defiance and a great voice to match. Martha Plimpton is a hoot as the audacious talent agent Claudia Bursik-Zimmer, all sharp elbows and even sharper retorts, while her husband Paul Zimmer – who performs plastic surgery simply because he can, is joyously played by American actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, best known (in my book, at least) for his long stint in Modern Family. Paulo Szot brings charm and swagger to the role of the smooth-talking Casanova with a shady business deal up his sleeve. Together, this dysfunctional ensemble ricochets from one surreal interruption to the next, their hunger becoming increasingly existential.
And then there’s the hapless Bishop, played with dry charm by Harry Hadden-Paton, forever searching for the meaning of life, and, increasingly, a new job. We also meet a complicated young soldier, head over heels for Francis, and the ill-fated Colonel Martin, brought to tragicomic life by Cameron Johnson. But perhaps the brightest light in this surreal constellation is Tracey Bennett, who plays both the woman and the maid. A master of caricature and comic timing, she often slips quietly around the stage, yet somehow you can’t take your eyes off her – her presence is magnetic, her every gesture razor-sharp.
Act Two is a complete contrast to the first: the chaos of missed meals gives way to eerie stillness. The ensemble is finally fed, waited on by Denis O’Hare’s delightfully dry old-school butler, and settles into their cocoon of indulgence – until they realise they can’t leave. They are trapped, inexplicably and irrevocably. What follows is absurdist drama at its finest, as the characters unravel in increasingly bizarre, hilarious, and unexpectedly poignant ways. It’s furiously paced, rich with wit, and laced with that uniquely Sondheimian melancholy beneath the sparkle.
But oh, what joy. I loved this bonkers, brilliant play. As a final work, Here We Are feels like a surreal farewell letter – bold, strange, funny, and defiantly theatrical. It’s a gift to have it, and a gift to see it done so well.
3 May to 28 June 2025
Here We Are
Lyttelton at the National Theatre
Upper Ground,
South Bank,
London, SE1 9PX.
Check our previews for more theatre on the Southbank and Bankside in 2025
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