Ever since I caught a glimpse of the latest revival of
Stephen Sondheim’s great musical SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH
GEORGE on the Tony Awards Show last year, I’d been hoping
I’d get the chance to see it in person. From the one
scene performed live on TV, it was clear this new
production , originally from London, made spectacular use
of computer projection backdrops. For a musical all about
the art of making art, it seemed ingenious to use those
massive projections to mimic the artistic process. And
now that I’ve gotten a chance to see this production,
thanks to the Fifth Avenue Theatre, I can attest to the
absolute ingenuity of the visual design. But I’m afraid I
can also attest to the fact that this ingenuity undermines
the success of the show. All that visual brilliance winds
up robbing the show of the power and heart it was
designed to enhance. It’s a fascinating failure.

For the uninitiated, Sondheim’s musical is about 19th
century French painter Georges Seurat as he struggles to
paint his masterpiece SUNDAY AFTERNOON ON THE ISLAND OF
THE GRANDE JATTE. As he goes about inventing an
entirely new way of painting, a technique eventually
dubbed pointillism, he also struggles with how to relate
to his model and lover Dot. She ends up forsaking him
because she realizes he can never give her what she wants
… to be loved. Georges is too caught up in his painting
to carry on a normal, loving relationship. With Dot out of
his life, he can plunge headlong into finishing up the
Grande Jatte painting.

What makes SUNDAY such a remarkable show is that Sondheim
brilliantly mimics Seurat’s pointillist painting technique
musically. His “songs” are often a collection of seemingly
random lines or notes that gradually cohere into a rich
musical sensation. In the song COLOR AND LIGHT, for
instance, George literally sings “red, red, orange,
orange, pick up blue” in staccato fashion as he actually
daubs those colors onto his canvas. If this sounds a
little too cerebral to be any fun, you’re not alone.
Sondheim is often attacked for being “all head and no
heart,” for being too intellectually driven and not
lyrically minded enough. I absolutely reject such
characterizations. His music is often so gorgeous as to
bring one to tears, especially the grand SUNDAY number
that closes Act One. And yet, I’m afraid this new
production plays right into the hands of the
Sondheim naysayers. For it continually undercuts the
lyrical nature of so much of Sondheim’s music. And without
that emotional underpinning, Sondheim’s show can indeed
become rather dry and laborious. Nowhere are the mistakes
of this production better on display than in that finale
for Act One.

It’s long been a truism that the first acts of Broadway
musicals are usually much stronger than the second halfs
AND that the most impressive scene is usually the finale
of Act One. That is definitely the case for SUNDAY. In
fact, I’ve long maintained that SUNDAY IN THE PARK has the
best Act One closer in the history of musicals. With the
haunting (and oh so lyrical) strains of the chorus singing
“Sunday” (which beautifully describes the scene they’re
inhabiting both in the park and in the painting), George
is hurrying around posing his models “just so” until, just
as the chorus reaches a crescendo, his masterpiece is
suddenly, and astonishingly, there before us, vibrant and
alive. It’s a real “coup de theatre.” And guess what? This
new hyper-visual production completely botches it.

For one thing, the set design does not provide a full flat
plane for the “painting” to be displayed on. Instead it’s
got clearly demarcated sides (with doors even!) that turn
the stage into a kind of large, deep hallway. Not an ideal
plane for recreating a two-dimensional work of art. The
“re-creation” is further muddled by the animated
projections of the three animals in the painting,
especially the monkey and the small dog. In the original
production, those animals are low-tech two-dimensional
cut-outs that perfectly match the look of the painting.
The problem with these new projections is that they
require separate little screens, screens that even have
frames. This completely interrupts the look of the
painting. For instance, the woman on the right with the
parasol and bustle is holding a monkey by a leash that is
interrupted by a frame! (The show’s designers seem to be
so taken with their technical prowess, they forget the
point of the scene. Why do they do it? Maybe for no other
reason than that they can.) And finally, the unnecessarily
rushed climax dooms the scene for good. Rather than
allowing the audience to luxuriate in the marvel on the
stage, the lights instead are quickly dimmed, and the
staged image is far too quickly replaced by the projected
image of the actual painting. It’s as if the show is
embarrassed by the comparison with the original, rather
than proud of it. As a result, what should be the final
visual pow of Act One – the stunning recreation – is
completely punchless.

Now this may seem like too much harping on a single scene
but it is emblematic of the problem with the entire show.
This production systematically subverts the tension
between the cerebral and the emotional that is at the
heart of SUNDAY. Surprisingly, it emphasizes the “ideas”
in the music at the expense of their lyrical expression.
At nearly every step of the way in the first act, George’s
singing seems clipped. It’s as if the production wants to
ensure that we see George as strictly cold and unfeeling.
And when that happens, the show is robbed of a crucial
dimension. George may have difficulties dealing with
people but he is passionate about his art and that passion
is often short-circuited in this production.

When SUNDAY IN THE PARK is more or less reduced to its
“ideas,” it can get rather tedious. In fact, this is the
first production I’ve seen in which the lush first act
seems somewhat barren and laborious. The second act has
always struck me as a bit that way and now it has a first
act to match. I guess that’s what they call symmetry.

Act Two focuses on Seurat’s great grandson whose art is
loosely inspired by his famous ancestor’s interest in
color and light. He creates lightshow installations dubbed
Chromolumes. When he premieres CHROMOLUME #7, some suggest
he’s lost his way. His grandmother (quoting her mother,
Seurat’s lover) even suggests he ought to incorporate “a
little less thinking and a little more feeling” in his
art. This advice echoes the sneering comments heard in the
first act about Seurat’s paintings: “No life in his art.”
Those latter comments are meant to be taken ironically in
the context of the musical but unfortunately they ring all
too true about this production. This SUNDAY IN THE PARK
WITH GEORGE might as well be dubbed CHROMOLUME #8.