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The 'George' of the title is the pointillist French painter Georges Seurat, not the sort of larger-than-life figure you imagine is required to launch a modern musical. But this musical (written in 1984) is by Stephen Sondheim, whom many credit as the only true begetter of intelligent and technically innovative musical theatre in the last 20-odd years (Sondheim is 60). And the work is less about the man himself (Seurat's life was notable for its lack of drama) than it is about the price paid for the obsessive creation of a painting - the famous 'Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte'. As the first half unfolds, the protesting voice of George's mistress Dot (sic) is increasingly dominant.
Artists, as Maria Friedman's resiliently humorous dot tells us, are 'Bizarre. Fixed. Cold'. George (Philip Quast) stands accused of having no heart. Art versus Life: a big theme. Sondheim, however, is not able to make it sound anything other than hackneyed and sentimental. In fact, it is the painting itself, and the with and flair of the production's visual design, that partly redeem the evening. As the lights go up, we are confronted by a blank white stage. George, at his easel, tells us, 'The challenge: bring order to the whole… through design, composition, balance, light and harmony'. And at his words, the set is transformed into a huge replica of Seurat's picture. An umbrella appears, a tree drops down, cardboard cut-out figures are wheeled on, a monkey rises from a trapdoor. Above all, the set is suffused with shimmering mauve and red light. It is cleverly done and beautiful to look at.
But if design, composition etc are the first principles of Seurat's art, Sondheim fails to obey some of the ground rules of musical theatre. The score is thin to the point of malnutrition. Staccato may be a way of suggesting the brush-stroke flickers of pointillism, but the slightness of the melodic line leaves dialogue and character development cruelly exposed. Praised as Sondheim often is for the strength of his lyrics, in this piece they just do not find enough support from the music. He is not after all a dramatist, however far removed he may be from the lush hypnotics of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Witty and clipped as some of the lyrics are, you are equally aware of their banality.
In the second half, set some hundred years later in the trendy gallery world of New York, we meet George's great-grandson - a multi-media artist who returns to France to drink at the well of his ancestor's inspiration. The first half, for all its drawbacks, contained enough diversions to keep me in my seat - which is more, I am afraid, than can be said for the second half.
© The Spectator
