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[0:00] Jess McAnally: Hello and welcome to Musicals with Cheese. It is I, Jess, joined as always by Andrew.

[0:09] Andrew DeWolf: How are you doing today, Andrew?

[0:11] Jess McAnally: Oh, I'm doing pretty well. How are you?

[0:13] Andrew DeWolf: I'm doing alright. You wanna go to lunch? Like, just for the sake of it?

[0:18] Jess McAnally: Yeah, where are we gonna go? I could go for some grub.

[0:21] Andrew DeWolf: What are you craving? Are you craving Italian? Mexican? Everything? French Deconstructivist?

[0:32] Jess McAnally: Can we get everything? I'm down for everything, I think.

[0:35] Andrew DeWolf: Let's go to everything. Oh no! Everything has nothing!

[0:40] Jess McAnally: Well, that's not everything. That's like false advertising, I would say. I mean, I frankly, I'm outta here.

[0:47] Andrew DeWolf: Get outta here. Let's go to the French Deconstructivist place. Where nothing is how it seems.

[0:54] Jess McAnally: Oh no! Everything is how it seems! Wah wah! We did it again!

[1:00] Andrew DeWolf: Wow. This is the most subversive thing. Did Rian Johnson write this? My goodness.

[1:05] Jess McAnally: Yeah, cause it's good. You know what? Now I get to make you watch Rian Johnson films in the rebrand.

[1:11] Andrew DeWolf: Have you ever watched a Rian Johnson movie?

[1:13] Jess McAnally: Yeah, I've watched at least two.

[1:15] Andrew DeWolf: Which two? Oh, the Knives Out movies. Doy.

[1:18] Jess McAnally: Yeah. I've watched both Knives Out movies and I've seen the best episode of television ever put together.

[1:24] Andrew DeWolf: Uh, The Fly?

[1:26] Jess McAnally: I actually really like that one, too. I know everyone hates that one, but I thought that was a good one, too.

[1:30] Andrew DeWolf: Breaking Bad? Breaking Bad? We're bringing back the classics.

[1:34] Jess McAnally: I feel like this is kinda gonna be, uh, let's revisit the good times.

[1:40] Andrew DeWolf: Remember when it was only us two and no one else was here?

[1:44] Jess McAnally: And then we got bored?

[1:46] Andrew DeWolf: Well, the thing is, the reason why it's better when we have more people here is because when it's only you and me, we become like a married couple and we don't actually talk.

[1:52] Jess McAnally: We need a third party, an audience of some type, or else we kind of get mean.

[2:00] Andrew DeWolf: Like, actually mean.

[2:02] Jess McAnally: I like getting mean. That's the problem.

[2:05] Andrew DeWolf: The thing is, we start doing things for ourselves and stop caring about an audience.

[2:11] Jess McAnally: Yeah. And you know what? Running around restaurant to restaurant bickering like an old married couple? Well, that sounds like a Sondheim show.

[2:17] Andrew DeWolf: Back to square one!

[2:20] Jess McAnally: This week, in our final episode covering Stephen Sondheim's final musical, here we are. Cue the music.

[2:41] Jess McAnally: So here we are as a musical with a book by David Ives and music and lyrics by the late, great Stephen Sondheim.

[3:08] Andrew DeWolf: Based on The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie by Louis Brunel and Jean-Claude Carrière, and The Exterminating Angel by Louis Brunel and Louis Alcoriza, the show has been in development for quite a while, since like early 2010s.

[3:26] Jess McAnally: And right during the pandemic, they had their first stage reading and Stephen Sondheim announced it on The Stephen Colbert Show, where he gave it the much better title, Square One.

[3:39] Andrew DeWolf: I've been working on a show for a couple of years with a playwright named David Ives, and it's called Square One. And we had a reading of it last week and we were encouraged. So we're going to go ahead with it. And with any luck, we'll get it on next season.

[4:00] Jess McAnally: Oh, my God. That's such a better title.

[4:09] Andrew DeWolf: However, before Sondheim's death on November 26th, 2021, Sondheim approved the final version of the show. They retitled it Here We Are, and yeah, they meant for it. It was always intended to have no songs in Act Two.

[4:16] Jess McAnally: It is totally not jarring and definitely something they intentionally meant thematically and nothing else. You'd be a liar and a communist.

[4:24] Andrew DeWolf: Even if Sondheim didn't die, there definitely wouldn't have been songs.

[4:28] Jess McAnally: Yeah, even if Sondheim was alive, he would have definitely just kept on no song in it.

[4:36] Andrew DeWolf: So the plot of the plot of Here We Are is the first act is based on the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie, where six friends go in search of a meal and get stymied along the way. The second act is based on the exterminating angel, where the same group would have a meal, but inexplicably unable to leave the room where they've gathered.

[4:57] Jess McAnally: So, Andrew, what do you think about Here We Are?

[5:01] Andrew DeWolf: I have some complicated feelings about this one.

[5:05] Jess McAnally: What, you didn't love it?

[5:08] Andrew DeWolf: No, I mean, so here's the thing, and we've been working on this episode for a couple weeks now, so I've had a lot of time to think about this one. It's like our Into the Woods episode, you know? I just have opinions on it where there's a lot of stuff that I think is really good, but there's just some fundamental flaws in the character development, and in just the show feeling incomplete, especially when it gets to the second half.

[5:48] Jess McAnally: Because I think it is incomplete, so it's hard to fault it fully, because it's literally not done, but at the same time, if you're going to watch it as a finished product, it doesn't feel like a finished product.

[6:03] Andrew DeWolf: My question is, and Brent Black, our third host, kind of, said, basically, if no one knew that Sondheim wrote this, would we even be talking about it? Is it of value added enough to make it valuable? What do you think about that?

[6:21] Jess McAnally: I think if Sondheim didn't write this, it would have ended at the end of Act I. And I think that it still would have some value, and people would still be talking about it.

[6:37] Andrew DeWolf: I agree.

[6:38] Jess McAnally: Do you agree? You think it would have ended at the end of Act I, if Sondheim didn't write it?

[6:43] Andrew DeWolf: I don't think so.

[6:48] Jess McAnally: You think that they would have kept the two songs in Act II, and then the play that is the remainder?

[6:55] Andrew DeWolf: I do.

[6:56] Jess McAnally: If it wasn't Sondheim.

[6:57] Andrew DeWolf: I actually do. Because it's David Ives, who is equally as big a name as Sondheim. I know that we're a Sondheim show, but David Ives is no slouch, and part of the reason why this show even exists is because David Ives and Sondheim really wanted to collaborate. That is the long and short of it.

[7:19] Jess McAnally: I'm projecting onto the show what I want, which is I like the first act, and I feel like the second act just kind of meanders, and it doesn't feel like it has good momentum, because the songs just stop.

[7:35] Andrew DeWolf: I guess, but that's kind of your review of Into the Woods, when we covered that, is you really liked Act I, and then Act II is just kind of mean and dark, and has less songs.

[7:46] Jess McAnally: Yeah, but in that one, at least Act II, I can see why it's there. It's there to contrast the first act, and give the message of the show. Here, it's just, it feels like it's almost two separate shows. You could very easily divide them.

[8:04] Andrew DeWolf: You said the same thing about Into the Woods.

[8:06] Jess McAnally: Yeah, but in Into the Woods, it clearly, thematically, it is connected. They're opposites of each other, almost. Not opposites, but they're contrasting aspects. Here, it just feels like you have two different shows that happen to have the same characters.

[8:22] Andrew DeWolf: I disagree. There's the contrast there. The first act is very open. We're going and exploring. We're doing different things. In Act II, you're trapped. Act I is open, and visiting, and doing things, and active. In Act II, you're stuck in a room.

[8:39] Jess McAnally: Sure, I suppose. I feel like, having seen it, it just doesn't feel like they necessarily need to be together. It's not like Act I is begging for, we need an Act II where they're stuck in a room.

[8:55] Andrew DeWolf: Now, I think that all goes back to the original Louis Brunel films. Do you know anything about Louis Brunel?

[9:00] Jess McAnally: I don't. He sounds French.

[9:03] Andrew DeWolf: He's Spanish!

[9:05] Jess McAnally: Damn it!

[9:07] Andrew DeWolf: But, that's a confusing thing. He renounced his Spanish heritage. He was exiled. He then became Mexican. He was basically a propagandist and a spy against the fascist Spanish government. He made a lot of dreamy works.

[9:33] Jess McAnally: There's the iconic... You've seen this image where the eyeball gets sliced open. That is him. He has done a lot of crazy work.

[9:43] Andrew DeWolf: In the meantime, I'm glad we've kind of dragged our feet here, because I've taken the time to watch the two films that this play is based on in that time.

[9:53] Jess McAnally: Are they good?

[9:54] Andrew DeWolf: Much like the show. The one where they're all going out is really, really interesting. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Beautiful film. Beautiful technicolor. Gorgeous cinematography. Really compelling. A lot of the same beats happen.

[10:10] Jess McAnally: The Exterminating Angel is an earlier work. It's much earlier in his career. It's in black and white. He quite hasn't nailed down the style. It doesn't feel as compelling in the same way that the respective acts of this story are. They're accurate to the themes, but I think that doing dream ideals or dream imagery or dream logic on stage is a little difficult if you're not going big with it.

[10:39] Andrew DeWolf: This does the movie version, which is like, as opposed to on stage where it's just kind of like, oh, things happen on stage sometimes.

[10:49] Jess McAnally: Yeah, I feel like when you do a play, it's hard to convey when things are in a dreamlike state because they're kind of always in a dreamlike state in all plays. You're already asking, especially in musical theater, you're always asking for a little suspension of reality.

[11:08] Andrew DeWolf: I think it's more weird to a general human being that you're singing than it is that, oh my God, this soldier is walking in and, oh my God, there's a dead person back there and, oh my God, these cafes aren't literal.

[11:23] Jess McAnally: Yeah, in film, you can show things realistically and then have surreal elements kind of pop up, whereas in plays, everything is always abstracted to a certain extent, so it's hard to abstract it and then portray some elements as more abstract than others.

[11:48] Andrew DeWolf: Am I saying that right?

[11:50] Jess McAnally: You are saying that right. Do you agree with me when I say this is probably Sondheim's most, I don't want to say personal because he's very big on nothing's personal. This is kind of a manifesto of theater, weirdly. At least that's my interpretation.

[12:05] Andrew DeWolf: I went into it knowing your interpretation and I tend to agree to a point.

[12:14] Jess McAnally: We should get into it.

[12:15] Andrew DeWolf: So Act One, let's just go through what happens.

[12:18] Jess McAnally: Yeah, break down Act One for me.

[12:20] Andrew DeWolf: In Act One, we meet a bunch of kind of, I'm just going to sum them all up as annoying rich people. Annoying in an intentional way, I should say. They're written to be this way.

[12:35] Jess McAnally: Yeah, they are intentionally bad people.

[12:39] Andrew DeWolf: Effectively. Do you want me to read off their names real quick just so that if we refer to one, people know what we're talking about?

[12:51] Jess McAnally: Yeah, sure, that's fine.

[12:52] Andrew DeWolf: We got Marianne, Leo, they're married. Raphael, Claudia and Paul. Claudia and Paul are married. Fritz, who is someone we're going to talk about quite a bit. The colonel and the soldier, the bishop, the woman, and the man. Although only some of them at the start. I believe the bishop, the colonel, the soldier are all met later. They join like the Wizard of Oz characters.

[13:16] Jess McAnally: Yes.

[13:16] Andrew DeWolf: So at the start, you have the two couples, Fritz going around to restaurants.

[13:22] Jess McAnally: Fritz and Rafi.

[13:24] Andrew DeWolf: Fritz and Rafi are kind of the outskirts, uncoupled people.

[13:27] Jess McAnally: Yes, yes.

[13:30] Andrew DeWolf: And they're going to different restaurants to try to find something to eat. They first stop in a restaurant where they serve everything, called Cafe Everything. And the waiter explains that they have everything and everything is going to be phenomenal and they all order what they want and then nothing comes out. They don't have anything. And then they get very upset and the waiter commits sudoku.

[13:59] Jess McAnally: So they leave.

[14:01] Andrew DeWolf: Do you want me to break that one down first or should we just explain everything and then have me break it down afterwards?

[14:07] Jess McAnally: I think we should go through the whole thing so everyone knows the whole story so they can see where you're getting your concept from.

[14:14] Andrew DeWolf: That's fine. So then they leave and for whatever reason none of them are particularly traumatized by this event because they're all just awful fucking people. They don't see the server as a person, basically. And I think that it's worth noting that the... Okay, I'll bring that up. But the actors who are doubling different roles, I think there's meaning behind that. Okay, we'll get back into that then. Then they leave and go to...

[14:47] Andrew DeWolf: ...to a French deconstructionist restaurant where the food is supposed to be a deconstruction of common French dishes or whatever it would be. It's supposed to be you order something and they give you something else that's like a commentary on it in some way. The exact wording they have is deconstructivist and that means nothing is what it seems. Yeah. But lo and behold they order stuff and exactly what they ordered comes out and eventually they find a back room where the chef is dead and they decide it's probably a good idea to leave this restaurant as well. So they go. Then they head to a third restaurant. I forget what the theming on this third restaurant is. It's just kind of a normal ass restaurant that they go to. They just go to a normal restaurant. This one doesn't have anything crazy interesting happening. They have but they meet people here. The government shuts them down immediately.

[15:51] Jesse McAnally: Exactly. I don't want to call it like COVID.

[15:58] Andrew DeWolf: Sure. The government shuts them down and they talk to a soldier who describes a dream that is shockingly similar to the actual events that are currently happening. So much that they appear like they the lights come up in the theater and they address the audience as if they are the actors on stage.

[16:17] Jesse McAnally: Yes it's it's a dream that he's having that is essentially exactly what reality is. And the colonel and the soldier then join them and they go to another restaurant. And this is where they meet the bishop. No they meet when they go to the embassy and they meet the embassy. Yes they could. They can't go to another restaurant because everything's shut down or whatever. So they go to the embassy and they meet a bishop and the bishop doesn't want to be a bishop because he likes smelling women's feet too much. And I think that's about the end of Act One at that point.

[16:58] Andrew DeWolf: Well then they finally go to this meal and I feel like you should you notice how you didn't talk about Fritz at all. I skipped all of that on purpose because I want to talk about your theory first and I feel like the Fritz stuff doesn't tie into it. The Fritz thing kind of dilutes everything. We'll get into Fritz. Don't worry Fritz fans. I'm going to say that's just separate. We're just going to do that at another time because what your theory is and I guess I'll just quickly like it's basically that each stop that they make represents a different type of music theater or a different thing that's taking place in the Broadway sphere and Sondheim is giving his commentary on it in some way.

[17:39] Jesse McAnally: I mean kind of. Yes. Yes that is kind of my opinion. So I could be wrong. I often am. If you've listened to this many hours of me talking you will know that more often than never I am wrong. But here I am. Put on the tinfoil hat with me and join me on this little trip. So I think that each restaurant is kind of representing a piece of musical theater in the modern day and sometimes personal critique with them. So let's start with Cafe Everything. I think this represents jukebox musicals and like movie to musical adaptations. So like the Cher shows the Moulin Rouge is the thing and I think it's by movie to you. You're specifically meaning mainstream movies.

[18:38] Andrew DeWolf: Yes. Obviously this is a movie to musical adaptation. Yes. Technically I don't think this is what you mean. I feel like no one's going to hold this up with passion to be like oh they're just trying to capitalize on the Fox fans. No. So I obviously you're talking about like Lion King or something like that. Yes. The Disney vacation of Broadway so to say. So they promise you the world they promise you everything. They are really really keen to show how much they're trying to please you or enable you as this the text of this. They call them that your enablers which you know and they promise you all these perfect things everything you ever wanted and then give you nothing and then are extremely depressed about it when you are unhappy with not being satisfied with the nothing you're given the no substance you're being given despite it being everything so much that if anyone even mildly critiques you you kill yourself which I see is sometimes criticism of modern theater in the populist sense where it's like you demand to be praised for doing nothing more or less which if this is maybe the harshest criticism just by virtue of the violent end of it it kind of comes across that way.

[20:03] Jesse McAnally: Though this is such a major part of if you're take this theory and run with it this is a major part of the modern Broadway like it there are so many shows now that are like jukebox or based like you know like Beetlejuice and like we broke down everything currently running on Broadway and most of it was either a jukebox or a film adaptation.

[20:31] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah like it's it is a massive because I mean those are the ones that are the safest bets if you're going to place an investment into a show you want to pick something that you know has a built-in audience that people are asking for you know it's like so you know you have to offer you have to offer the populist stuff and then they don't really deliver anything that's thought-provoking or it doesn't really it doesn't challenge you in any way so I could see calling it an enabler.

[21:03] Jesse McAnally: You know I don't I guess the only part I don't fully understand is the do they really take criticism that harshly like I so you and I in our experience on this podcast are we mean are we the bad guys we I have gotten emails from people involved in shows we talked about on this podcast and I feel like this is the if there's ever a time for me to reveal some of the stuff that's happened to us which is weird let's not get personal but I'm not gonna say anything but people from shows that were running at some point that's vague enough wrote emails to us because we were slightly negative or not glowing about a show currently running and saying that we are risking people's jobs and blah blah blah blah and how our criticism and the fact that we're held up to any regard is ridiculous we've gotten of course the famous caddy and crass email.

[22:05] Andrew DeWolf: They have very thin skins Broadway people so much that they are saying that critics are ruining the art which no like literally they are falling upon the altar to blame themselves blame everyone but their own art for why things aren't working I guess you you get you bring up a good point like I don't know I don't want to reveal too much but I mean we we are we're not particularly well liked in the Broadway circle.

[22:35] Jesse McAnally: No we are not everyone is probably quite happy that this is our last episode you're wondering why we're leaving the theater space wonder no more kids they don't like us that much we are not well respected in most Broadway circles and a lot of folks tend to think that we punch down but honestly Broadway how can we punch down we're as low as it gets we're a fucking podcast exactly like people like how dare you punch down on us poor poor theater makers charging five hundred dollars ahead to watch we don't we don't even get five hundred dollars a month.

[23:12] Andrew DeWolf: Um and it's baffling to me how thin-skinned a lot of folks in the theater community are they are very public facing figures and I feel like that's part of the trade-off with being public facing even to our extent we we have a good shuckle about every negative review we have and then we move on I feel like that's the height of it yeah sometimes I'll get a little argumentative with Jess I never actually say anything to anybody but I'll just be like what are they talking about what are they talking about but then it's just like whatever I don't care.

[24:01] Jesse McAnally: Yeah like at the end of the day we're proud of the work we do and we know that we put effort into it you're like and that's kind of what Sondheim's thing is like I I want to make art for the sake of art and he never forgot the audience but that kind of leads into the the next the bistro the deconstructivist bistro which I think represents revivals and modern reinterpretations of um old work by dead artists the chef is dead that that's an important element these first two I a hundred percent like you're dead on with these two like I feel like it's it's once you see it it's not even subtle like you know like what else is he talking about.

[25:38] Andrew DeWolf: I mean this is we're talking about works the only thing I guess that maybe gets me is that it's he calls it deconstructivist and it's not what you would seem but like I guess a lot of the original works that are getting revived that are older those were those were kind of straightforward shows.

[25:55] Jesse McAnally: So like they're not really that much like well that leads me to this this statement I believe it's from Hal Prince about a little night music that Sondheim echoed several times and I think about it especially when it comes to this one he described a little night music which they wrote to be successful like that was their thing like they wanted a rebound hit show um Hal Prince described it as cake with knives where you will get an enjoying piece of cake you will get your fun sweetness but you're going to get a little stabbed at the at points like it is going to be cutting and we want to kind of reel you in and then get you with the content like actually give you something of quality when you're expecting basically junk food and that that was kind of a lot of what Sondheim did he wanted to entertain an audience but he also wanted them to think about what they're seeing um he wasn't just kind of he he always cared about an audience even if um audiences didn't love what he did there was obviously care put in for their sake and then we come to this uh the constructivist thing let's take I like this but I'm pretty sure Sondheim didn't um Oklahoma Oklahoma was the first musical ever written by Sondheim's mentor and surrogate father Oscar Hammerstein the second um and then in 2019 they made the the the Daniel Fish uh production of Oklahoma which makes a lot of things that were subtext text.

[27:28] Andrew DeWolf: Um it isn't it is what it is so to say like yeah there the underscored sex is now just out in the front and same with cabaret um both the most recent revival and the oncoming revival every time we do cabaret we kind of make the sexuality more obvious and we make it more sexual we make the themes more obvious.

[27:48] Jesse McAnally: I okay yeah no now that you're putting that forward I definitely see what you're saying um so basically what used to be kind of interpreted like something you would interpret into the show when they revive it they're just like well this is like a fan theory so like it's just you know legit now it's just canon uh um and here's and they're taking the works of dead people even Shakespeare and just taking the subtext and making a text and I know Sondheim was not a big fan of it there was the famous time he criticized the Oscars for having Lady Gaga sing a medley of sound of music songs where he's like what the fuck does Lady Gaga have to do with the sound of music what why is this here which is a fair assessment and everyone jumped on his throat and he kind of came off as you know old man ways a cloud which he gets some sometimes in this show but.

[28:56] ♪ Musical number ♪

[29:02] Jesse McAnally: I think I mean on some level there is a place for just like Lady Gaga singing sound of music I don't think hurts anybody like it's it's it's just for fun right it's the Oscars when you're doing a revival of a show it's a little more like this is this is the modern version of the show so when you change it to remove any subtext you are actually kind of fundamentally changing what the show is um you know yeah um and I think he likes the idea of traditional musical theater that you can slide some some things in there you can slide some actual kind of meat into into the bread and then of course is the whole the the the chef is dead aspect which is you know it just it brings the whole theory together where it's like well he's talking about these shows that people are taking and just turning them into what they are instead of what we used to be implied and the guy who used to make them is literally dead then we have the next one which is a restaurant that they think is real they get served a little bit of food.

[29:34] Andrew DeWolf: And then they realize it's all made of wax and it's all an artifice and it gets shut down by the government, you know, kind of like what happens in early 2020 with COVID and Broadway.

[29:47] Jess McAnally: Yeah, I don't know why I didn't think of that because that's obviously, like if you're talking about modern theater, especially when he was writing this, that is like the most obvious thing in the fucking world. But I just didn't think of that.

[30:01] Andrew DeWolf: Where the government is telling you, you can't enjoy this thing and it's fake anyway, so who gives a shit? Now, in that sense though, do you have theories about the soldier and like, obviously there's the restaurants, but does the soldier represent something? Does he represent a breakdown of Broadway?

[30:23] Jess McAnally: You see, this is where I think character work is very different in this world than the actual story structure. Like characters, I think is more David Ives. Like I think that's more the playwright like saying his two cents and these song moments is Sondheim having his say.

[30:47] Andrew DeWolf: Well, the soldier's song in particular is the whole very like meta breakdown of the walls between audience and theater, like dream sequence. So what is he trying to say by that? Does it tie into COVID? Is it like how COVID moved into people's moved theater into people's houses instead of and it kind of opened it made it made theater a lot less like I don't know.

[31:20] Jess McAnally: I think that the characters like the literal characters, the Fritz and all that have very little to do with the themes here. I think so. I think that this is one of those times where the soldier has this dream because in the movie the soldier had dreams.

[31:37] Andrew DeWolf: OK, I do think that if there's anything that they do tie into, though, it's the main characters representing the mainstream Broadway audience. Yes. And my main characters, I don't mean the soldier. I don't mean the bishop. I mean the people with actual names. Yes. The ones who go from restaurant to restaurant, you have a bunch of kind of cultureless, rich people who are just looking for something to eat. And with them is like a progressive, younger, upper class person that we'll talk about.

[32:14] Jess McAnally: Yes. So maybe it is the time to break down these characters a bit. So we got Marianne, who is like this weird kind of daffy five Xanax to the wind woman that's barely there and just has bad memories and doofy, basically a comedy character. She's like a wine mom.

[32:37] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. But she I don't even know if she has kids. All I know is that she hurts.

[32:43] Jess McAnally: And then we have her husband, Leo, who is a billionaire, like ruthless, mean, crude, and kind of, you know, kind of a douchebag. But he also like invests money in drugs. Basically, he's the guy that bought the tickets and she's the one that asked him to.

[33:01] Andrew DeWolf: Yes. She kind of cares about the art. Like every time she goes into a place, she's like, oh, isn't this charming? And she's complimenting and being very nice to people. But it's always that he's just like, yeah, whatever. And then we have Rafi, who is, you know, he's trying to fuck all the women. Basic classic. And he's from a fictional place called Miranda. And he's the ambassador from Miranda. He's the one who gets revealed to be somebody else, right?

[33:33] Jess McAnally: No, he's just drugs. He sells drugs.

[33:40] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, no, he's just part of the drug ring. He's the one that offers himself to be sacrificed in act two.

[33:45] Jess McAnally: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then we've got Claudia and Paul, who are married. And Claudia is kind of like, you know, this lady who's cheating on her husband. And Paul is kind of a guy that barely exists. I don't remember a fucking thing about Paul. Holy crap.

[34:03] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, he barely exists. Then we have Fritz, who is the last one and probably the only really important one as far as themes and what these people have to say. I'm not sure how much of his Sondheim, how much of it is David Ives. Fritz is the character that almost ruins the show for me.

[34:21] Jess McAnally: You are not the first nor the last person to have that opinion. But the thing is, maybe this is me. I love Michaela Diamond as an actress so much. She is literally I think she's only 24, like she is a child. I'm not going to say anything about actresses or anything. It's literally just there is a subplot in the show that I feel like you could surgically remove it and the show would be almost unaffected and would probably be a better show for it. It's so weird and I just don't get why it's even here.

[35:01] Andrew DeWolf: She does not have a one to one analog in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. There is a revolutionary kind of character in that, but she immediately gets sexually assaulted and basically arrested.

[35:14] Jess McAnally: OK, so she's not a fake believer. Let's just quickly let's just quickly Fritz. The problem with Fritz is that it feels like Fritz is here for a reason, and I feel like it's because somebody either David Ives or Stephen Sondheim had something to say about modern politics and young people in it.

[35:34] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, Fritz is a younger, we'll say upper middle class to upper class person.

[35:41] Jess McAnally: I'd say, I mean, they've got a trust fund, so they're rich.

[35:44] Andrew DeWolf: Upper class, then. And she believes in radical politics. And by radical, I mean full on revolutionary overthrow of everything.

[35:57] Jess McAnally: Capitalism. They equate the end of capitalism with the end of the world.

[36:06] Andrew DeWolf: Yes. She wants to donate a ton of money to a terrorist organization that is dedicated to ending the world. That's their statement of their goals, not mine. They say that they wanted to do that. It's very weird. I don't really get it, but it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism, as they say.

[36:30] Jess McAnally: So basically Fritz under the code name Apocalypse for this weird company, I think. What is it, Prada?

[36:42] Andrew DeWolf: It's Prada, which is people for the revolutionary something. It's like a thing. They say it like one time and then it's just called Prada. And then they make a joke about Prada.

[36:57] Jess McAnally: People's Revolutionary Anti-Domination Society.

[36:59] Andrew DeWolf: That's it. Yes. And so she's Apocalypse and she's on the phone constantly with someone called Inferno. And she learns that they need 50 million dollars to be able to put on their terrorist revolution.

[37:12] Jess McAnally: So she blackmails her two friends, I guess, to get that 50 million dollars because she knows they're involved in drugs. And it's very weird because it's very like it's incredibly easy for her to get this money. And she even tells them what she's going to use it for. And they're just like, OK, whatever. And what was it like, put ourselves on the line or kill the destroy the world?

[37:39] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, you got a bargain.

[37:40] Jess McAnally: Yeah. And I mean, sure, that's funny. Like, yeah, I guess probably rich people would a lot of them would probably just be like, yeah, my money or the end of the world will go into the world. So I suppose that's funny. But yeah. And but the important thing is she has all these values. She even states in Act One, like, hey, I've been gay since I was three. But that all changes when we have a representation of U.S. military and all that's good with America, a soldier with dreamy eyes who had a dream about her.

[38:09] Andrew DeWolf: And she immediately dropped not only her sexuality, her revolutionary tendencies and her morals because she saw a guy that she thought she could settle down with. It's so confusing to me because everything else about the show and I'm not going to like not getting super political, like it's not like far left or far right or anything like that. It's politics are confusing, so it's worse.

[38:38] Jess McAnally: Yeah. What it is is that a lot of the show reads as a criticism of how like culture lists a lot of like the upper classes and like how they don't really care about anything. They just drive around and they want to get food, you know, like it reads that way. But then you throw into the middle of it and this basically an extremely reactionary, like right wing stereotype of a young person who just espouses like feminist and anti-capitalist and blah, blah, blah ideas just because you're anti fashion, anti fascist.

[39:18] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, just just because it's popular and she only does it because it's popular. But the second that anything goes on in her life, she's going to drop all that like a rock, you know, like immediately they make her call her. She makes them call her Brits and they're like, I thought it was pretty. I remember when it was Florence, like making fun of choosing your own name and like a kind of underhanded way towards trans people.

[39:45] Jess McAnally: Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to say that they're trying to say anything specific, but it's certainly like one, this character doesn't have an analog to the actual movie. So this is something that they put in here on purpose to there's very little like follow through on this plot line. Like she calls for the end of the world and then she gets very stressed out that it's going to happen. But then it just kind of doesn't know what happens. That's why they're that's another part of the reason why they're in their bubble and it's happening outside. And it happened when they leave, like when they exit to go, they are entering in the end of the world times.

[40:27] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, OK. Well, I guess it happened then. But I don't. So so I don't know. That makes it even worse, honestly, because then they're trying to say that this type of person is going to literally end the world.

[40:30] Jess McAnally: Yeah, I. I don't want to be like the guy who's like, oh, my goodness, they're just being critical of my politics. But like, why is this here? What are we trying to say?

[40:44] Andrew DeWolf: Like, I do want to say, like at the end of the show, the joke is they are now searching for food in the end of the world where they are hunting for food, as opposed to going to a restaurant like that is the punch line to the show, basically.

[41:01] Jess McAnally: OK. That's great. I just I don't really. I guess I just don't understand why this character is here. Like, why? Why do we need this?

[41:13] Andrew DeWolf: It's there to make fun of young people because they don't know what they believe in. And the things that they do believe in are ridiculous and they don't actually believe in them. They just think they do. It is truly the most the part of the show that I hate the most.

[41:27] Jess McAnally: It really is just like, OK, grandpa, let's get you to bed kind of moment, you know, like.

[41:34] Andrew DeWolf: They don't believe in anti-fascism, really?

[41:41] Jess McAnally: Yeah, even though like a lot of the people like, OK, I'm just going to bitch about boomers for a second. I'm sorry. But a lot of the people that they're talking about are in their like 30s, you know, like some of these people that they consider young people who have radical politics, they're like fucking 35, 36, you know, like they're talking about millennials, a lot of them.

[42:05] Andrew DeWolf: I just had a really, really dumb epiphany here, which will lead us into act two.

[42:10] Jess McAnally: Sure. So if we're extending the metaphor that these are Broadway theatergoers, which is what we've pitched or which is part of my pitch of what they are, then I think they are supposed to be that I even think Fritz is supposed to be that Fritz is supposed to be like a, you know, a young theater kid or whatever. Honestly, it's my opinion.

[42:33] Andrew DeWolf: And like my favorite thing about Fritz is he's like, just because you're a waiter, I don't see you as just a waiter.

[42:39] Jess McAnally: He's like, that's fine. I am a waiter. What do you want?

[42:45] Andrew DeWolf: Like she's virtue signaling.

[42:51] Jess McAnally: Yeah. And I understand that on some level. I mean, that is a real thing. Like there are people like this that are like kind of faking it, kind of virtue signaling a little bit. But like, I don't know, it comes off it comes off very mean spirited and very like dismissive.

[43:06] Andrew DeWolf: So because it is, it doesn't just come off. It is. That is what they're doing. It is exactly that. Yes. But but thinking back to what we're saying, what if act two represents the effects of the pandemic where in act one, we have them being shut down and act two, we have them being locked away.

[43:25] Jess McAnally: Okay, no, you're making sense. That was just something that came to me as I'm just thinking about this like, fuck, is this my metaphor expanding? And they're all dying and it doesn't matter. Like they're all like it affects them just as much as it affects anyone else.

[43:41] Andrew DeWolf: It makes sense. The only thing you're missing is you needed you needed to have like a you needed to have the opposite of Fritz. You needed to have like the the middle aged man who slowly goes down the queue rabbit hole and starts just spewing random because that makes a lot of sense because people got fucking people did get radical during the pandemic.

[44:06] Jess McAnally: Yeah, like everybody did. So it would make it would make the Fritz character a little more tolerable if it was clear that they weren't just targeting a particular group and a particular politic if they were just being like, wow, politics got fucking crazy, right?

[44:22] Jesse McAnally: And so, like, what are they all doing? They have no entertainment, they all entertain themselves with, like, you know, charades and stuff, and they're running out of food, they're running out of resources, they're... they are just as fucked as all the rest of us poor people. Um, I guess we should go into Act 2 a bit.

[44:36] Andrew DeWolf: Do you want to go into a mid-show and do Act 2 afterwards?

[44:39] Jesse McAnally: Oh my god, when are we going to talk about these songs?

[44:42] Andrew DeWolf: I feel like we talk about the songs after Act 2. I have a lot less to say about Act 2 than Act 1, so.

[44:50] Jesse McAnally: Okay, how about we go into this mid-show and then we'll talk about these... songs.

[45:02] Jesse McAnally: Hey guys, sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the show, but we've got a shillet of you. Today's show is brought to you by the extremely kind donations by our donors over at Patreon, and we're so grateful that you guys stuck with us for 300 episodes. A lot of you have.

[45:15] Andrew DeWolf: To the bitter end.

[45:17] Jesse McAnally: To a new beginning.

[45:18] Andrew DeWolf: It's true. We're literally back next week.

[45:21] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, you're not going to wait at all. Next week we're doing our... we're embracing our meme side and doing it. But this is kind of the end of an era and the start of a new one, and I'm grateful that you guys have joined us for as long as you have. We're going to revamp the entire Patreon with next week, give you more access to things, a lot more options for ways of participation. You guys have already given us suggestions for The Wheel, which a lot of them actually seem really good and really fitting for what we're trying to do here, so great. Someone suggested the Ramy Spider-Man trilogy.

[45:57] Andrew DeWolf: That's actually a good suggestion. I have a decent amount to say for that.

[46:01] Jesse McAnally: So I'm excited. I am more excited than I am anything else right now. Andrew, why don't you tell us who's currently supporting us?

[46:39] Andrew DeWolf: The Omega Geek, Paige Pearson, Maddy Wargill, Eliza Erdman, Anna Loskotova, Sarah Den Blaker, Evan Ball, Zachary Torres, Rora Moroso, Mara, Lisa Ellis, S. Washington, Nick Roten, Puffyboy, Sidney Hicks, Billy Clifton, Goldplate Akiki Mora, Aria Ardy, Emma, Kara Balda, JRL Studios, Katherine Shawcross, and Alexandra Dom.

[47:04] Jesse McAnally: I feel like we got new names in there just from last week, which is crazy.

[47:08] Andrew DeWolf: Isn't it pretty interesting? They all give us support that helps us keep the lights on and make Musicals with Cheese and The Cheese Wheel an even better experience for you guys. We have fun things planned, but they kind of require a little bit more fun and to keep the show interesting. Like, Andrew wants to talk about roller coasters.

[47:27] Andrew DeWolf: I do want to talk about roller coasters. I actually have a shit ton to say, too.

[47:30] Jesse McAnally: So the show's going to get weirder and more interesting and more ambitious. Like, say what you will, there's not much more we could do to really amp up musical theater. But how about we get back to the show and talk about Act 2 of Here We Are?

[47:43] Andrew DeWolf: So, Act 2, they've collected all their buddies, they eat their dinner, and Inferno, the fella who is running the apocalypse thing with Brits, turns out he is keeping them there and they can't leave this room. They are trapped inside.

[48:20] Jesse McAnally: Isn't it more supernatural than that as well, though?

[48:22] Andrew DeWolf: Yes.

[48:23] Jesse McAnally: I feel like it's beyond just he says they can't leave. They literally can't leave. They try to leave, and every time they are like, maybe not. No one could actively leave this building.

[48:28] Andrew DeWolf: It's very Twilight Zone.

[48:40] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, and dreamy. Dream logic kind of stuff, but it doesn't work on stage. So we kind of have this one-person play, and we didn't talk much about the songs here, but that is kind of the elephant in the room of this show.

[48:55] Andrew DeWolf: The songs just kind of end.

[48:59] Jesse McAnally: And the bishop goes to the piano, and he's like, oh, the piano's dead. Rest in peace. And then the audience goes, aww, because they get what they mean.

[49:09] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, so Act 2 is a lot less interesting than Act 1, mostly for me, because one, it takes place all in the same spot, and two, there's no songs. And you know what, honestly? No, three, the characters are not that interesting, and it's very character-focused in this part.

[49:29] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. It reminds me a lot of the only other play I've seen by David Ives, which is Venus and Fur, which is a weird kind of show about a playwright director trying to find an actress to play the female lead, if his adaption of the sadomasochistic tale Venus and Fur, and turns out she's a little bit more of a mystical figure, and sadomasochism is really—and they're trapped in this room together, and the balances of control and who's in charge, that is played around a lot, and it reminded me a lot of that, in both good ways and bad. I like Venus and Fur a lot more than I like Act 2 of this.

[50:10] Andrew DeWolf: So he has a thing for trapping people in a room.

[50:13] Jesse McAnally: Well, most plays do, but yes.

[50:17] Andrew DeWolf: See the room.

[50:18] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. Oh god, the room doesn't even take place in one room! It makes no sense!

[50:23] Andrew DeWolf: I know! He's like, he fucked it up. He literally was like, I'm gonna write a play that's about one room, and then oops, it didn't do that. Can't change the title!

[50:32] Jesse McAnally: You could change the title, though. It's whatever. We gotta talk about the bear, though.

[50:39] Andrew DeWolf: The bear. Yeah, there's a bear that just kind of wanders into the room.

[50:43] Jesse McAnally: Yeah.

[50:44] Andrew DeWolf: From what I remember. Does it even do anything?

[50:46] Jesse McAnally: Marianne just kind of talks to the bear a little bit. It's a surreal moment. And it works in the movie this is based on, because it's a real fucking bear. You're like, how the fuck did they get a bear? And there's other animals around, too. It's not just a bear. And I'm like, you put bear on other animals, I start getting scared.

[51:08] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. But on stage, it doesn't work that way.

[51:11] Jesse McAnally: The dude in a bear costume.

[51:12] Andrew DeWolf: It's just a dude in a bear costume, and you're just like, well, it's a bear. I mean, they're trapped in a room, I don't know.

[51:19] Jesse McAnally: And we also reveal that Inferno, who is played by the same actor that played the server in the in Cafe Everything and a few other, you know, the Italian waiter. Basically, he's playing waiters and manservants throughout until it turns out he's Windsor or Inferno, and the server becomes the one holding the reins on them. Which, I guess, is a play on the fact that it's revolutionary action. I mean, I suppose the waiters take power over the idle bourgeois. I don't know.

[52:01] Andrew DeWolf: It gets a lot less clear here, but there are some great scenes in this, some fantastic scenes in some fantastic scenes in this, but it also kind of slows down. Like, I love the interludes. I really like the moment between the bishop and Marianne, where they're eating books, eating books, basically eating paper.

[52:27] Jesse McAnally: They don't like reading, so.

[52:30] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, well, that comes that comes into my passion rant later. Um, I think my real issue with this is it doesn't feel like we get anywhere.

[52:42] Jesse McAnally: Well, Leo dies in a heart attack.

[52:45] Andrew DeWolf: Well, so he does, but he doesn't, though he dies, but then he comes back later. And then they just what ends up happening is they end up having to remember where they were when they decided to stay the night and choose not to stay the night.

[53:00] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, and then they need to choose not to stay the night that time, and then they leave. So they kind of get out of the Groundhog Day bubble.

[53:08] Andrew DeWolf: I don't know. It's very weird. It doesn't feel like the characters see a ton of growth throughout it. So you just kind of end up with a couple like vignettes almost where it's like, oh, she meets a bear or they eat books, and then it just ends. You know, the only one that seems to have an actual arc.

[53:29] Jesse McAnally: The bishop, who's that?

[53:31] Andrew DeWolf: The bishop, yeah, who is ironically a character not introduced until the very end of Act One. He's one of my favorite characters in this story.

[53:40] Jesse McAnally: Do you want to talk about the bishop?

[53:42] Andrew DeWolf: I mean, I have my theory for what he represents. So we didn't get to him because we ended at the we ended at what you consider the COVID one. So after they go to the restaurant that closes down, they end up at the embassy where they meet the bishop.

[53:58] Jesse McAnally: The bishop sings this really good song called the Bishop Song, basically, where he says he doesn't want to be a bishop. He doesn't think he's particularly good. He thinks he's a little over the hill. Despite loving God and all those other things, he'd be so many other things better, which is from the original film. In fact, the bishop becomes a gardener in that. And then he discovers his father was killed by a gardener. That movie's weird, but there is a whole other kind of arc for him there.

[54:31] Andrew DeWolf: And here it's he learns to be a bishop and how to be there for others and truly believe through this experience. And at the end, he does find his faith in his purpose through it all.

[54:47] Jesse McAnally: And you have a theory as to who the bishop is.

[54:49] Andrew DeWolf: I think the bishop. Yeah, it's kind of Sondheim. He has done ironic, like there's the famous song God that he wrote for Sondheim on Sondheim. And I also use very soft lead pencils are called black wings and means that they wear out very quickly. So you can spend a lot of time sharpening these pencils are very hard. I mean, the man's God wrote the score to Sweeney Todd with a nod to decide.

[55:22] Jesse McAnally: Well, he's.

[55:28] Andrew DeWolf: He's joking that people refer to him as a God, and he's very self-deprecating in it. And here you have a man of the cloth claiming that he has no value and he no longer sees a place in what he once really, really felt compelled by. And in this song, very on the Sondheim of him, he doesn't rhyme like it's a Sondheim patter song without any rhymes, which feels a little pointed. And with all these connective tissues, I can't help but see like, oh, that's him finding his place in all this, which is kind of a part of the upper crust and kind of one with all these other people. And these people want to hire him and do things. But also they're like, oh, we don't want him. You almost have to read it as like older Sondheim. At his old age, recognizing where he fits into everything, despite feeling like an outsider at that point.

[56:23] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, which is interesting and possibly why that character is the only one with an arc and kind of because there is a bishop character in the films, but it doesn't really have a one to one with what this guy is doing in this story. You know what I mean?

[56:40] Andrew DeWolf: Well, what does the bishop do in Act Two? Why don't you run through that really quick?

[56:44] Jesse McAnally: And in Act Two, he is like a spiritual guide for everyone. Everyone kind of looks to him for that, especially Marianne. And he does have like the really great interlude scene that I brought up where he basically gives what is usually done in song, a moral to leave the story with. And I guess of note, he was also the one who goes to the piano and says that it's dead.

[57:09] Andrew DeWolf: Yes.

[57:10] Jesse McAnally: You know, he is the one that says the piano died. But he says the meaning of life, that's not important. Being basically being here means that we have value. Here we are, and therefore we are. We must keep living.

[57:30] Andrew DeWolf: Which is would have been a great song, I think, if they had actually written it. It maybe would have salvaged the title as well, instead of making us want it to be square one instead. They say square one so often, it would have been her.

[57:45] Jesse McAnally: They do. And then they at the end, they return to square one by starting over at the beginning, essentially.

[57:52] Andrew DeWolf: We pass into complete nothingness, a total void forever and ever that we're actually unaware of because we're not here anymore. The end.

[58:01] Jesse McAnally: I like that.

[58:03] Andrew DeWolf: And then it just starts snowing.

[58:07] Jesse McAnally: It's a weird show and Dreamlogic, all that kind of stuff. Cool with me, but also.

[58:12] Andrew DeWolf: That is the closest thing to a moral and an emotional core in Act Two. And I like it. I'm really compelled by it. I don't know. Talking about it, there's so much interesting stuff that you can read into this, and there's so many things.

[58:26] Andrew DeWolf: But the Fritz storyline holds it back a lot.

[58:30] Jesse McAnally: The Fritz, everything with Fritz absolutely drags this down.

[58:35] Andrew DeWolf: It's like an anchor on the show.

[58:37] Jesse McAnally: It's like.

[58:37] Andrew DeWolf: I disagree because I like Fritz's songs.

[58:41] Jesse McAnally: I'm talking about the storyline, though, like all of that, just it's like an anchor on the show. And then it just Act Two just kind of wanders for me. And I know that you like some aspects of it and the ending is pretty decent. But Act One is just so much better.

[58:58] Andrew DeWolf: And it really just feels incomplete.

[59:00] Jesse McAnally: It really does. That being said, though, I don't think it's bad. Like there's just too much that's interesting in this and too much.

[59:09] Andrew DeWolf: Like, there's enough to talk about here that we've probably talked about this show for like three hours at this point. Um, so... And it's definitely interesting. Like, it is a compelling show. It is definitely something, you remember watching it, you remember, like, I go back to our Do I Hear Waltz episode, where it's like, this is a nothing show, there is nothing to latch onto here. What it, what it is, is it's, it's, it's a show that I don't think is completed. But all of the themes are still there. And it's not lazily put together. And there was clearly thought behind everything. Or we're just reading into it way too fucking far. But honestly, I don't think we are. I don't know. I feel like we're not the most brilliant minds of theater in the world.

Like, with all respect to us, I feel like we can't have been the only ones to make these connections here. And I was really down in the dumps. I forget what we were covering. But I kind of went on a rant about how compelled I am by this show, because of the effort, the thought and the fact that it has so much more to say than, than most things, most pieces of art. Yeah. And it was Saturday night, it was Saturday night, where I'm like, it's weird, because this show says nothing. And what he ends on says so much, despite also being very flawed. We've done this for 300 episodes. And I think if there's anything to learn from covering this much artistic material in a single genre or anything, it's like, most art doesn't have anything to say.

Fuck if you ain't right. There's just and I'm not saying that as like, all art sucks. I think there's plenty of art that has nothing to say that's perfectly entertaining. Look at Smiling Friends. Yeah, like, you don't need to have something to say to be entertaining. But when you happen across something where there is, there's meaning to be derived from it. And not just like a shallow, like, I'm overanalyzing a Disney movie. Like, like, you know, like, there's like something real in there. And we've talked about other shows like this. And I feel like we've generally been positive about most of them. Um, how about we talk about some of these songs really quick.

[1:01:31] Andrew DeWolf: Um, so the waiter song is one of your favorites, right?

[1:01:55] ♪ Musical number ♪

[1:03:27] Andrew DeWolf: I like the waiter song because I thought it was pretty fun and I like how fucking dark it gets at the end. The rhyme, specifically. It is a little... So it's been, what, 20, 30 years since Sondheim's last Broadway show. So it's weird to see his references get updated to things like Teslas and Bitcoins. But there's a line in this show where someone asks for latte and he says, we're also out of latte. What? We do expect a little latte later, but we haven't got a lot of latte now. No, there's clever little things like that. And I just kind of, I like the waiter character and I like the concept of the song. So but the thing is, I actually like both of the numbers about the restaurants. It is what it is. It's also very, very good. Yeah.

[1:04:20] Andrew DeWolf: Any specials?

[1:04:41] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, dark chocolate. Dark, dark, dark. Chicken bus squares, baby. That's what I want. So and then it's too late. But what can you do if that's on your plate? You do what you can. What's going on back there? Nothing, nothing. Is that a private room? It is nothing, really. But I adore a private room. Oh, my God. Philippe! That's Philippe! That was Philippe. Yeah, but he's just kidding, right? Monsieur, he was fresh. He have no sense of humor.

[1:06:02] Andrew DeWolf: I think that both of these are really good. And I almost, I almost wish there was more, but we kind of just dropped this like restaurant to restaurant idea when you get to the third one and they close it all down. But I know you're going to hate me, but I need to talk about the soldier song. I think that you have to mention the soldier song because it's very meta and strange. And I'm sure there's something you could read into this, but I've got fucking nothing, honestly.

[1:06:34] Andrew DeWolf: I was in a cafe which looks somewhat like this, sitting next to a girl who looks something like you. And she whispered her name. I've forgotten her name, but the name was like music. And you and you were there. And you and you and you all wearing shroud. Shroud. Anyone? Shroud. And then I noticed that you'd all been dead for years. Except for the girl with a name like a rainbow. Oh, my God.

[1:07:49] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, Andrew, I'm sorry. I thought I would never get another Sondheim ballad again. And hearing this, my jaw was on the ground when I first heard it. I loved it. I still love it. Its meaning is still baffling. I am still unpacking exactly what it's trying to say. Its connection to the Fritz storyline does kind of diminish it a little bit, but it steals from one of my favorite Sondheim musicals, Passion, quite a bit. And Andrew, if you don't mind, in the doc, I did play a lot of references to other Sondheim works just in this song. If you wouldn't mind just playing a montage comparison of that now.

[1:08:37] ♪ Musical number ♪

[1:09:19] ♪ Musical number ♪

[1:09:28] Andrew DeWolf: All this happiness merely from a glance in the park. So much happiness, though. How could I forget when we never had met? Then I looked in her eyes and I thought, oh my God. Perhaps you'll join me and my cousin one day. But like, there's references to the frogs and passion, and it just feels very melodic. But it is where people, a lot of critics do claim that this is Sondheim kind of falling into hack-fraudery by referencing his own work and just being out of ideas. Or I think they are intentional references. Especially if it's only a play part sounding like children will listen, it feels like it. But specifically from Shine, I hate—I'm going to make you do this again. Shine has many lines about Marianne not liking to read.

Her lyrics are, all these polished leather books, I do not mean to read. I don't mean to read. No, no, not to read. But by the way that they look, I like things to shine. Shoot me. I like things to glow. Why can't I be free to like what I see and not what I know? That part right there, identical to Fosca's line, like, melody-wise. I do not dream to think. I do not read to learn. From I read, where they're both singing about why they don't read. These polished leather books, I don't mean to read. No, no, not to read. No, I mean the way it looks. Not that we want to be superficial. I do not read to think. I do not read to learn. I do not read to search for truth. I know the truth. The truth is hardly what I need. I read to dream.

[1:11:46] Andrew DeWolf: I feel like that has to be intentional, right?

[1:11:49] Jess McAnally: You know, I think that it is intentional, and I think that Sondheim has earned the ability to reference himself a couple times. Yes. I mean, he lived long enough where he should. And history has shown that it's impossible not to. But I don't want to linger on too many songs, so there's really only one more I want to talk about, and that's the Bishop song. The Bishop song is the funniest song, probably, because he likes to smell feet. He thinks feet are sexy. It is a weird thing to give a bishop a foot fetish. He just likes her slippers. They're very fetching. Yeah. And it's also played by Niles from Frasier. I feel like it's a good song. It's a good song. I don't know if I have a lot to say about it, but it's fine.

I think another reason why this show doesn't work for me as much as I think it could have is the casting. They cast a lot of very good actors who I just don't think are right for their respective roles. I think about the readings that they had where Nathan Lane was Leo, and Bernat Peters was Marianne, and Sierra Boggess was Fritz, and Heidi Blickenstaff was in there, Michael Cerveris, Jen Simard. Matthew Morrison was in the mix, probably as Rafi. And I'm imagining that, and I'm like, ooh, I would be really compelled because of their actorial history, where here it's a lot of new actors, a lot of fun character actors, and I'm just kind of like, you don't have the Sondheim connections I wish that you did for this last piece. I wonder if this will ever get additional...

[1:13:34] Andrew DeWolf: Revivals.

[1:13:37] Jess McAnally: ...revivals. I don't think it's going to be big in communities. Actually, it might be. I think it would be... I want to see other people's interpretations of the text. You know what I mean? I think you could make a shorter version of it, just cut out all the Fritz stuff.

[1:13:49] Andrew DeWolf: Or just stick with Act One.

[1:13:52] Jess McAnally: Yeah, you could just make Act One and probably call it a whole thing.

[1:13:56] Jesse McAnally: On that note, Andrew, it's been a long time. Our first episode was a Sondheim musical. Our last episode is a Sondheim musical. I think it's time for you to rank them. And you know what? I'll rank mine as well, but most people are here for you and want to hear your rankings.

[1:14:15] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. If somehow, someway, you have never seen any episode where I've done a tier list before, the way I do it is it's A through D. A, B, C, and D tier. D is the worst, A is the best. It's ranked within itself, so these are only ranked up against each other. They're not ranked against everything. And the current list that I have, which includes, I believe, every single other Sondheim work other than his plays and stuff. Um, you know, I really don't think we need to include the reviews and, you know, marry me a little. We talked about this. That shouldn't count. That's just his cut songs that they tried to pull into a narrative, you know?

[1:15:00] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. I mean, we can always include Dick Tracy, though.

[1:15:06] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, Dick Tracy does belong in there. All right, so. Also, Red's because we're not saying through three hours. Sorry, guys. No, that doesn't count. He just did one little five minute piece of music in Red's. He wrote more for Dick Tracy, and that's not even a full three hours. He also wrote one song for the 7% Solution. These things don't count, kids. I'm sorry.

[1:15:24] Jesse McAnally: All right, so in A, and these are, well, it's ordered for the most part. I might disagree with my own ordering on some of this and maybe would reorder some, but it's mostly ordered. A tier is Sweeney Todd, The Mama Rose Musical, Into the Woods, A Little Night Music, and you know what? Fuck it. I'm just going to put Dick Tracy up here. I love Dick Tracy. I know it's not his, not Sondheim's best work, but I like Dick Tracy.

[1:15:52] In B, we have Follies, Sunday in the Park with George, The Frogs, Merrily We Roll Along, West Side Story, Roadshow, and Company. In C, we have Assassins, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Pacific Overtures, Passion, and Saturday Night. And then D tier is Evening Primrose, and is it Do You Hear a Waltz?

[1:16:22] Andrew DeWolf: Do I Hear a Waltz.

[1:16:23] Jesse McAnally: Do I Hear a Waltz. And what is Here We Are Land?

[1:16:28] Andrew DeWolf: We- I'm putting Here We Are in C below Assassins. I do think that it has a lot of interesting things in it. I just, I can't rank it higher than this because I don't feel like it's finished work.

[1:16:41] Jesse McAnally: I'm so shocked that Roadshow's above this.

[1:16:44] Andrew DeWolf: You can be shocked all you want. I'm shocked that you have Passion in your top one.

[1:16:48] Jesse McAnally: Well, well fuck you. Do you want to hear my ranking?

[1:16:51] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, let's hear it.

[1:16:53] Jesse McAnally: All right, so I don't, I don't have a tier list. I'm just going from bottom to top, so worst to best. Do I Hear a Waltz, Roadshow, Saturday Night, Evening Primrose, Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, West Side Story, Pacific Overtures, Anyone Can Whistle, The Frogs, Assassins, Here We Are, Yeah, Above Company, Told You, The Mama Rose Musical, Follies, A Little Night Music, Barely Roll Along, Sweeney Todd, Passion, Into the Woods, and Sunday in the Park with George. So my top five are Merrily, Sweeney, Passion, Into the Woods, and Sunday. I think if I was to go through and reorder anything here, I'd probably lower Company, raise up Assassins.

[1:17:39] Andrew DeWolf: You really liked Company, you really didn't like Assassins. I honestly am surprised that Here We Are is below Assassins.

[1:17:43] Jesse McAnally: I know, but I'm like, I've gone back and listened to some of it, and I'm wondering if I watched it again now if I'd like it more than I did.

[1:17:53] Andrew DeWolf: Okay, because I had an interesting experience, if I'm going to retread old ground here, since we're in episode 300. So since our respective episodes on them, I've seen Assassins live and A Little Night Music live. My appreciation for Assassins went down quite a bit after seeing it live, and my appreciation for Night Music went up a lot after seeing it live. I'm like, oh fuck, that's true, oh god, like that is one of the best things I've ever seen, versus Assassins where I'm like, it's a little sloppy.

[1:18:27] Jesse McAnally: I mean, I would not bring Assassins up a lot, I would just bring it up maybe one, I don't know though. This is not official, this is me speculating on where I might move stuff if I were to. Everything is staying where I put it though. Until Sondheim writes another one.

[1:18:44] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, we'll see if that happens.

[1:18:48] Jesse McAnally: That would be the thing, they release one from the fucking graveyard of things he gave up on.

[1:18:53] Andrew DeWolf: That is a scary thought, and I feel like that's a little unethical, but it probably will happen.

[1:19:00] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, they still release new Elvis music and shit.

[1:19:04] Andrew DeWolf: Elvis didn't even write his own songs, how could they do that?

[1:19:07] Jesse McAnally: I don't know, they find scraps in the studio and they're just like, fuck it, we'll put it out. It's like the John Lennon, Elton, or fucking Paul McCartney song that released, where it's like the new Beatles song, now and forever or whatever it is, now and then.

[1:19:23] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, it's like, dude, there's no, like, they're dead, man. Well, one of them is.

[1:19:29] Jesse McAnally: A lot of them are.

[1:19:31] Andrew DeWolf: Ringo's still alive, right?

[1:19:32] Jesse McAnally: Ringo's alive and Paul are alive, the rest are dead, George and John.

[1:19:36] Andrew DeWolf: There's only two other ones, so half of them are alive.

[1:19:39] Jesse McAnally: Half are dead though.

[1:19:41] Andrew DeWolf: True.

[1:19:42] Jesse McAnally: Wait until you release all the forgotten podcasts after I die.

[1:19:48] Andrew DeWolf: No, I'm just going to keep going with Brent.

[1:19:51] Jesse McAnally: Even though it's not about musical theatre?

[1:19:53] Andrew DeWolf: You could literally go out with anyone, but you're still picking Brent?

[1:19:57] Jesse McAnally: Brent, he's the OG.

[1:19:59] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, I do think he has to be the first guest on the new Revive show somehow.

[1:20:05] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, I don't know what he would want to cover.

[1:20:07] Andrew DeWolf: I mean, we're going to allow the guests to just pick their own shit, I would guess.

[1:20:11] Jesse McAnally: No, no, totally.

[1:20:12] Andrew DeWolf: It's on a wheel.

[1:20:13] Jesse McAnally: What are you talking about?

[1:20:14] Andrew DeWolf: Well, I mean, they have to pick what they want on the wheel, right?

[1:20:17] Jesse McAnally: I think we give them, like, three, three options, like.

[1:20:20] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[1:20:21] Jesse McAnally: So there is like a randomization piece to it.

[1:20:24] Andrew DeWolf: On that note, Andrew, what is your overall thoughts on Here We Are or Square One, which is a better title, and your cheese rating?

[1:20:32] Andrew DeWolf: Here We Are is genuinely good when it's good and pretty bad when it's bad. It doesn't feel like a finished show, especially when you start getting into Act Two. But I would say Act One, I would say Act One is really strong, but that's where a lot of the Fritz shit happens. And that shit is just obnoxious and just doesn't feel like it belongs here. It's the end of the world, you morons!

[1:21:00] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, OK.

[1:21:01] Andrew DeWolf: It's mixed. It's mixed, but I'm leaning good.

[1:21:05] Jesse McAnally: It's mixed, but leaning good. There is a lot in here that is, like, interesting, and I hope that we gave you something to think about if you do ever watch this or listen to it. I think, I hope people are going into this with a new state of mind while listening to it, where it's like, oh, let's see if I can find Jess's weird conspiracy theories.

[1:21:26] Andrew DeWolf: I would say, I would go so far as to say I don't think some of them are conspiracy theories. I think that some of them, while they're not texts, I think that they're supposed to be in there. I feel like, especially the meta commentaries on theater, it makes a lot of sense that Sondheim would have a lot to say about that that he hasn't really put out there, and this is his way of kind of doing it at the last minute, you know?

[1:21:51] Jesse McAnally: It does have the feeling of, oh fuck, this is my last time, and an awareness that it's your last time.

[1:21:58] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[1:21:58] Jesse McAnally: It does have that manifesto feeling to it. I think on some level he must have known this probably would be, it was at least extremely likely to be his last work.

[1:22:12] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[1:22:13] Jesse McAnally: So what's the cheese rating?

[1:22:16] Andrew DeWolf: This is a very difficult one to give a cheese rating to, because on one hand there's genius aspects to it, and on the other hand it's like, I just didn't like it that much. I kind of want to give it Swiss cheese, because when it's good it's good, but it's also full of holes, you know?

[1:22:37] Jesse McAnally: That is literally the same thing I was going to give it, is Swiss.

[1:22:41] Andrew DeWolf: And I don't want to actively rip you off, but Swiss cheese is my favorite kind of cheese. It is the thing I will often choose, but there's often not enough of that, because they do cut like half of it out with the fucking holes. So I'm gonna, if we can end in unity, I think I am also going to give this Swiss cheese. That's fine. I'm fine with that. But what is there I fucking love. Like, what is not missing is great, and this had every chance to be one of the best Sondheim musicals, and in my opinion it is in the top 10 for me. And that's just a personal thing. I know, I get it, I get it, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I really fucking engaged with this and felt compelled by it. I think it's worth listening to.

If you can find it, which I think it is just on Spotify, I just listen to it. Give it a good listen. And if you can find the book, I actually think David Ives' playwriting is very good in it. It makes me sad that they didn't work together, because they do work well, these songs and this kind of playwriting and the surrealist vibe of it. It all feels very well integrated. It makes me mourn for other collaborations that could have been. Speaking of other collaborations that could have been, Andrew, that was the last Musicals with Cheese episode. Damn, we've been doing it a long fucking time. Five years of our lives. I feel like, I know it sucks to end things, and in some level we are ending the show, but I mean, on another level we're just kind of starting again.

[1:24:17] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[1:24:18] Jesse McAnally: But it's like, it does feel like the right move. We're kind of just out of musicals that we care about to talk about. And we're out of energy to put towards this kind of community that doesn't particularly want us being there in the first place. It's weird to kind of feel that way. And when you're young, it's kind of punk rock to be going against the grain, but now it really just kind of is demoralizing. At a certain point, it's like, man, I feel like we've done a lot as far as getting attention for musical theater for people that maybe wouldn't even be into it otherwise. We got so many emails about how people said, I feel very daunted by theater and musical theater specifically, and you guys make it seem accessible. But at the same time, the mainstream crowd didn't really want us to be here. It's a gatekeeping world. And it's kind of a shame. But I don't want to make it seem like we're victims in this. We are mean-spirited in some ways.

[1:25:22] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah, we're idiots at the end of the day.

[1:25:28] Jesse McAnally: So don't pity us. We're going to come back and do some fun things. And we're still on the Broadway Podcast Network, so see a Broadway show, I guess. But I want to say something that's going to sound really... How do I phrase this? Um, when I do this show, it's very hard for me to actually enjoy musical theater anymore because it does kind of become part of work. I've not been able to listen to a theater album.

[1:25:57] ⚠ About 3 minutes of audio could not be automatically transcribed.