|
Sunday in the Park with George is a rarity: a serious musical about Art and Artists. Act One details Georges Seurat's invention of pointillism as a means of capturing colour and light on the Île de la Grande Jatte as its occupants take their Sunday ease. Act Two follows the struggles of Seurat's imaginary American great-grandson George, a multi-media artist, to escape the trammels of repetition and ‘Move On’ (as a duet has it) creatively. Thus one artist uses another's work to explore a shared experience: the obsessive artistic drive which overrides love and human relationships, the fear of repeating oneself. Fascinated, we watch and listen: Sondheim has been there and can tell it as it is.
In music that captures the spirit of Seurat's pointillist brush (dotted rhythms clearly pointed by small orchestra) and lyrics that reinforce its particularity (placing words precisely for their chromatic and dramatic effect) Sondheim draws us into the creative process itself. Designer Tom Cairns fleshes out his (and Seurat's) vision with settings which ravish the eye and mark Rim's defacement of Paris. Steven Pimlott's inspired direction orchestrates flying trees and pop-up dogs in the best "wittiest partition" tradition - scene and light changes provoke delight and wonder as, obeying Seurat's spoken imagination, a black canvas is transformed into Un Dimanche d'été à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (1884-1986).
James Lapine's book is the show's weakest link: Reader's Digest uplift. But with dazzling numbers like the comic 'It's Hot Up Here', the touchingly elegiac 'Beautiful' and the sharply cynical 'Putting it Together' - to say nothing of brilliant performances from (among others) Maria Friedman (Dot/Marie) and Philip Quast (Georges/George) Who cares? Sunday… George doesn't set out to be wham-bang coach-party musical; it aims to stimulate the mind and question the heart. It makes you work and succeeds superbly.
© Times Newspapers Ltd.
