Sunday in the Park With George Critical Review
T his book is a retrospective peep behind the curtain, an account of how a musical was conceived, written, produced, launched – and nearly died in its infancy. It is by and large fascinating, especially if, like me, you're baffled by the mechanics of artistic collaboration. How is it that 2 people can discover a common voice to make a single work of fine art?
In this case, it was a musical of a quite cerebral and challenging nature. In 1982, Stephen Sondheim was and so depressed by the flop of his terminal project – Merrily Nosotros Scroll Along had airtight on Broadway after sixteen performances – that he contemplated abandoning musical theatre to showtime on something new: video games. (Yeah, really.) Before that ambition could take root he happened to meet a young playwright, James Lapine, who'd had some off-Broadway successes. At Sondheim'southward apartment, they got together once again, smoked dope and began throwing ideas effectually. Later a couple of imitation starts, Lapine brought over a postcard of Georges Seurat's painting Lord's day Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which gear up something off: it looked similar l characters on a stage set. When Lapine pointed out that the main character was missing – the artist – Sondheim responded: "Boing! All the lights went on… a great moment." Sunday in the Park With George was up and running.
Or maybe just jogging. Sondheim however wondered if information technology shouldn't be simply a play; Lapine hadn't collaborated on a musical before and the but Sondheim he knew was Sweeney Todd. They were nervous of each other. The first song was a long time coming. Only, slowly, the story of a painter, George, his mistress, Dot, and the tug between art and love came together; a cast was recruited and workshop rehearsals began at the off-Broadway theatre Playwrights Horizons. Lapine recalls this in a sequence of transcribed conversations, which gives the volume a squeamish flow and allows all involved a turn in the spotlight. The musical manager, actors, choreographer, prepare-designer, costume lady, audio and lighting people, indeed just about anybody bar the theatre's lavatory attendant gets a say.
Alas, the format as well encourages a lot of luvvie confessional ("I think information technology was but wildly brave of you to have decided to work with me") and mutual backslapping. It becomes especially ripe when the show's star, Mandy Patinkin, opens upwards. His great performance came at a price – "a pain in the ass", according to 1 cast member – though he and Lapine appear to have found each other irresistible. By the terminate, the love-in betwixt star and director feels like Sally Field'due south Oscar oral communication rewritten as a duet. Lapine, recalling the struggles of xl years agone, isn't above polishing his own legend: "I'g actually somewhat in awe of my younger self." Not everyone was so enamoured of it. Kelsey Grammar, having realised the director didn't know "upstage" from "downstage", eventually jumped transport on the project. Sondheim, with the wisdom of years, sounds a more considered and gracious presence. Lifelong acclaim, perhaps, relieves him of the need to blow his ain trumpet.
Lapine has concord of a good story nevertheless. Right upward to the opening (two May 1984), the production danced on a knife-border. The previews were terrible. People leaving the show were seen ripping upward their programmes. Some left in the intermission or else halfway through the second act, which wasn't still finished: missing songs had to be filled by actors doing monologues. 1 interviewee talks of "walking ovations", a phrase I hadn't heard earlier – audience members clapping as they exit the theatre in embarrassment. "Sun in the Dark and Bored" was ane of the nastier jibes. Somehow, it survived. Two key songs were delivered for the finale (Bernadette Peters and Patinkin singing Move On is for me a highlight of the Sondheim oeuvre) and Frank Rich gave it a decent review in the New York Times. The twin impostors of triumph and disaster continued to stalk it. Two months after the opening, Sondheim had a centre set on – "probably not a coincidence". The post-obit year, it missed out on a Tony honor simply won a Pulitzer (go figure) for best drama.
You tin can read an culling account of the show in Sondheim's memoir-cum-lyric book Look, I Made a Chapeau (2011), in which he remarks on the emollient bear upon of working with Lapine. Often defendant of writing cold, dispassionate scores, he was required in Dominicus… to express via song "the straightforward, unembarrassed goodness" of Lapine's characters. His tone changed "and I was the better for it". Even genius needs assist sometimes.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/05/putting-it-together-review-how-sondheims-sunday-in-the-park-with-george-was-born
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