Stephen Sondheim’s posthumous final musical is an aimless disappointment
4 / 10
There is an immediate, and fundamental, problem: not only are these shallow idiots – here a bunch of vacuous urbanites in search of a place to have brunch – too thinly drawn to feel properly human, but there’s not a single compelling or convincing relationship between them. Obviously, the piece is highly stylised in an effort to replicate Bunuel’s off-the-wall aesthetic. But – in a slick, soulless production by director Joe Mantello – as theatre, it makes pretty thin gruel, leaving us as hungry and dissatisfied as the show’s perpetually frustrated posse.
