Reviewed by James Karas
The Glimmerglass Festival once again tips its hat to Broadway by producing Sunday In The Park With George, the 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical has won a carload of awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1985.
George of the title is French painter Georges Seurat who painted A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte between 1884 and 1886. The island is in the Seine and was frequented by ordinary Parisians on Sundays and Seurat wanted to capture them promenading there. The plot of the musical is fictional so don’t try to learn anything about Seurat from it.
In the opening scene of the musical, George (John Riddle) tells us what a painter faces: "White, a blank page or canvas. The challenge: bring order to the whole, through design, composition, tension, balance, light and harmony." It is a tall order for the painter who is sitting in front of an easel and sketching his model Dot (Marina Pires). She is bored and frustrated (and very funny) at having to get up early every Sunday and stand still and pose as ordered by George. She is also his mistress. Parisians start arriving on the island.
An Old Lady (Lauretta Bybee) comes with her Nurse (Taylor-Alexis DuPont)and the latter plops her on the ground with some difficulty. The Old Lady turns out to be George’s Mother. The musical has 36 characters played by 17 singers/actors but many of them are inconsequential.
The action picks up and we see numerous vignettes. Artist Jules (Marc Webster) and his wife Yovonne (Claire McCahan) opine that George’s painting has “No life,” Dot befriends Louis, the baker, the two Celestes (Angela Yam and SarahAnn Duffy) argue over who will get the better-looking soldier and so on. George continues painting.
the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Photo by Brent DeLanoy/The Glimmerglass Festival
A pair of American tourists Betty (Claire McCahan and Bob Greenberg (Marc Webste) represent one view of the stupid American tourist from the South and they are very funny.
The plot complications recur and develop while George and Dot reach an impasse. She is carrying his child and she wants to marry Louis (Sahel Salam) and go to the United States. Jules sneaks away for a bit of fun with Frieda (Viviana Aurelia Goodwin) and his wife Yvonne finds out about it. Oops. Mayhem breaks out on the island. George takes control, after all it is his painting, and its subjects take their place in A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte which will end up in the Art Institute of Chicago.
That is the first act of the musical with some humour, drama and numerous complications and the appropriate ending with the completion of the work.
But Sondheim and Lapine add a second act that takes place 100 years later, in 1984. with George’s great-grandson also called George. The latter has a machine called "Chromolume #7" and he is showing his great-grandfather’s work with that machine and with the help of his 98-year-old grandmother Marie (Marina Pires), the daughter of Dot. Marie tells us what her mother told her on her deathbed. Then Marie speaks to her mother in the painting. Then a vision of Dot appears and by that time I have lost almost all interest in what is going on.
There are excellent performances by the cast. John Riddle is a dedicated, serious minded almost obsessed artist. He is lithe of foot and voice and a distinguished performer. The Americans provide good humour and Julius and Yvonne are notable for their work.
The sets by John Conklin are minimalist but effective. He set the standard for set design for all the season’s operas and deserves a standing ovation.
Director Ethan Heard does a fine job in the first act but I got diminishing returns in the second act that all but killed it for me.
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Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book) is being performed six times until August 17, 2025, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater as part of the Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown, New York. More information www.glimmerglass.org
James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toronto
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