Susan Granger’s review of “Sunday in the Park With George” (Studio 54: ’07-’08 season)
“Sunday in the Park With George” has been called Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s most cerebral, coldly calculated and certainly most challenging musical – and this is its first major New York revival since its 1984 Broadway and Pulitzer Prize-winning debut with Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin.
Centering on post-impressionist painter George Seurat’s pointillist masterwork, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte,” it’s a visually glorious rumination on the creative process. “Art isn’t easy” is thematic, punctuated with the exuberance of a musical score that includes “Color and Light,” “Finishing the Hat,” “Putting It Together” and “Move On.”
Set in Paris in 1884, the first act examines the troubled relationship between the obsessive, self-absorbed painter (Daniel Evans) and his model/muse/mistress Dot (Jenna Russell), who becomes pregnant with his child and leaves him for another man. The second act details Seurat’s American great-grandson’s (Evans) pretentious struggle with sophisticated patrons in the contemporary art world, exhibiting whirling lights which he calls “Chromolume No. 7” – with the encouragement of his great-grandmother (Russell).
The Roundabout Theater Company has imported this production from London’s West End, cleverly replacing the three-dimensional, pop-up cardboard cutouts and laser beams with high-tech still and animated digital projections to convey Seurat’s complex painting process, focusing on subtly changing perspective and harmonious flecks of color.
Fortunately, director Sam Buntrock, who is also an animator, and his creative team – David Farley (set and costumes), Ken Billington (lighting), Timothy Bird and the Knifedge Creative Network (projection design) – makes the most of this glorious 21st century gadgetry. While neither Daniel Evans nor Jenna Russell has the star quality of their predecessors, they’re excellent singers, and the supporting cast – Michael Cumpsty, Jessica Malskey, Mary Beth Peil, Alexander Gemignani, Santino Fontana – is superb.