The Last Midnight

UNLIKE AN ORWELL or an Odets, the cheekily (and correctly) self-described "icon of the American musical theater" Stephen Sondheim is not ordinarily associated with overt political righteousness. Yet what Orwell called "a sense of injustice" flows through Sondheim's work-sometimes as a quiet underground stream, sometimes as a heaving, filthy flood. "What does a man do, when at last he realizes his suffering is caused not by the cruelty of fate but by the injustice of his fellow human beings?" asks the anarchist Emma Goldman in Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins. So although it's not a surprise, it's still an invigorating relief that Sondheim's final offering to the world, the long-time-coming new musical Here We Are, is fittingly complex and thorny. The same seething consciousness of caste and cruelty that ripples through Assassins and Sweeney Todd forms the backbone of Here We Are, a show with, if anything, even more of an impulse to eat the rich. There's no blurring of the composer-lyricist's inimitable agile and angular forms, no blunting of his wit, no comfort in nostalgia. The play has sharp, savage urges. When it wobbles, and it does so increasingly as it goes along, it's because the logical conclusion of its premise is so dark, so extreme, that you can feel the more ambivalent instinct of the show's creators to look for alternative exits.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 06 - 19, 2023-Ausgabe von New York magazine.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 9.500 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 06 - 19, 2023-Ausgabe von New York magazine.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 9.500 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden

'We're Running Out of Mansions'
How The Gilded Age makes absurdly low-stakes period drama into must-watch television.

THIS SUMMER WE'RE EATING IN GROCERY STORES
They're more affordable, more flexible, and a lot more fun than restaurants right now. HERE ARE THE 65 BEST SPOTS TO GET STARTED.

What a Cosmetic Chemist Buys at the Drugstore
WE ASKED Dr. Julian Sass, the creator of a viral sunscreen database and an expert fact-checker of product claims, about the most effective items he routinely picks up.

Alfargo's Marketplace
On a recent Friday night, shoppers (and sellers) parsed through vintage pieces at the pop-up menswear bazaar held at NeueHouse.

Attention Seeking
Amid a growing awareness of our dwindling ability to focus, people are trying to reverse the damage, with mixed results.

The Emancipation of Addison Rae
The TikTok star's debut album breaks with the past.

Play on Words
A Eurydice production that’s lush with language.

Appealing Pieces for Petite Balconies
Designers and tasteful apartment dwellers share the furniture that has made their tiny outdoor spaces worthy of spending time in.

E. JEAN CARROLL'S UNEASY PEACE
IN THE YEAR AND A HALF SINCE DEFEATING TRUMP IN COURT FOR THE SECOND TIME, SHE'S WRITTEN A NEW BOOK—KEPT SECRET, UNTIL NOW—AND PLOTTED HER LEGACY.

Everyday People Brian Wilson and Sly Stone were musical innovators.That's where their stories diverged.
THE VAST MAJoRITY of humans alive now aren't old enough to feel the shell shock from the musical paradigm shifts of the 1960s.