If you love Stephen Sondheim, you will love the production of "Sunday in the Park with George." It's elegant, visually stunning, brilliantly directed, beautifully performed--and digitally enhanced.
"Sunday in the Park with George," is a fictionalized musical work inspired by Georges Pierre-Seurat's masterpiece, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." The show itself, the first of several collaborations between Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book), received the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for drama, one of only seven musicals to ever do so.
In 2005, director Sam Buntrock reconceived "Sunday in the Park With George" in its first-ever revival, which originated in London. It subsequently moved to Broadway in 2008, and is now playing at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre, featuring a superb cast lead by Hugh Panaro, a Broadway favorite.
Although this new production of "Sunday in the Park With George" packs a visual wallop, it is still a mental musical-a cerebral celebration of creativity. Like the philosopher René Descartes' infamous line, "I think, therefore I am," we journey through Sondheim's mind as he explores the genius of Seurat with words and music.
These two artists are surely soulmates. Sondheim changed the face of Broadway musicals with his daring and innovation, much like French neo-impressionist Seurat changed the face of art. Seurat gave his characters life on canvas. Sondheim gives them life onstage.
Seurat rejected broad brushstrokes of mixed colors. Instead, he used dots or dabs of pure colors, which, he believed, created a richer perception of character in the eye of the beholder. By connecting these dots, we become voyeurs in the world of Seurat and Sondheim.
In Buntrock's visionary interpretation, digital technology adds a dazzling dimension. As Seurat paints, the people on his canvas are introduced. The drunken boatman and his mutt, simpering shopgirls, bourgeois poseurs, pandering artists, a strong-willed mother, soldiers, a restless model, a good-hearted baker.
David Farley's architecturally-spare set creates the illusion of depth. A blank canvas awaits the master. When the music begins, Seurat's brush slashes across the walls via digital technology. Sumptuously draped curtains become trees. Boats glide across the river while people appear and disappear at Seurat's whim. Even dogs run, pounce and roll over, thanks to Timothy Bird's amazing animated designs.
In the more engaging Act One, set in 1884, Seurat's canvas gradually comes alive onstage, and we share his artistic vision. Scenes alternate between the park where he sketches and his studio where he turns those sketches into paintings. He has few friends, but he does have a mistress named Dot (pun intended). Also his model, she's full of life-and love for him. But his first love will always be art, and Dot wants more.
Act Two hurls us forward a century to the New York art scene, where Seurat's great-grandson, a multi-media artist--also named George--is presenting his latest work at an upscale museum. His artistic integrity suffers when he must pander to pretentious patrons, pompous critics and artsy groupies in order to fund his art. He explains his angst in Sondheim's witty commentary, "Putting It Together."
The actors are double and sometimes triple cast. Hugh Panaro portrays both Seurat and his great grandson. As his vocal expression mirrors his dilemma, Panaro endows Seurat with a totally convincing loner's detachment. He yearns to connect emotionally, but can only do so with his art. In the song, "Color and Light, there is a brilliant synchronicity of Sondheim's music to both Seurat's obsessive painting and Dot at her powder puff. And when Dot's ghost appears to his great grandson in the second half, they duet on the inspirational "Move On."
The supporting cast is outstanding. Billie Wildrick pouts, poses and sings poignantly and passionately as Seurat's earthy mistress Dot. She detests her "fashionable" bustle, longs for longer legs and hungers for nights on the town. In Act Two, Wildrick morphs, in complicated Sondheim style, into Dot's spirited 98-year-old daughter, Marie, who wants to set the record straight about her father. Wildrick shines in her rendition of "Children and Art."
Allen Fitzpatrick gives a nuanced performance as Seurat's friendly-and slightly jealous--rival Jules, who finds Seurat's concepts confusing and lifeless. The marvelous Patti Cohenour reigns as Jules' opinionated wife.
Anne Allgood acts as nurse/companion to Seurat's demanding and out-spoken mother, who is played with panache by Carol Swarbrick. Allgood also does a brief but hilarious turn as a tacky Texas tourist in 19th century France. She then she inhabits a wealthy art patron in contemporary New York.
David Drummond doubles as a drunken one-eyed boatman and later on, a technological whiz named Dennis. He has a great line in Act Two, which he delivers to young George, "I'm going back to NASA. There's just too much pressure in this work (art)."
Sondheim's music takes on the style of the artist's techniques. Early songs are conversational fragments, but as the painting gradually emerges on Seurat's canvas, the music gathers form and body.
The musical is not without humor. The figures in the painting sing "It's Hot Up Here" complaining about their situation-being stuck on canvas for a century while crowds stare at them. But the ensemble's best moment comes in "Sunday," a lush choral arrangement that builds both acts into an exquisite climax.
Admittedly, Sondheim isn't for everyone. You don't tap your toe to his music. While his devotees hail his intricate, staccato-paced lyrics and musical dissonance as pure genius, others find this off-putting and tedious. His musicals expose the harshness of society's foibles, in contrast to a composer like Irving Berlin, whose musicals affectionately embrace human nature.
Unlike Seurat who died at age 31, Sondheim, who recently turned 79, is still putting it together. A Sondheim musical personifies sophistication and intellect. Although he has wannabe imitators, none has yet surpassed Sondheim's haunting harmonies, urbane lyrics and calculated genius.
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