Sunday in the Park with George (1984)

 

I mentioned this show recently when I was reviewing Parade’s End.  I can never truly nail down a favorite Sondheim show, but this one is under frequent consideration.  Like all of his musicals, it has its imperfections, but whenever I listen to the score, my love for it floods in anew.  It’s perhaps Sondheim’s most personal show, and that shines in the music.

 

To some extent, Sunday in the Park with George is more of an idea than a story.  Its two acts tell different but interrelated stories about artists named George, separated by centuries, continents, and media.  Act 1 follows the creation of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte, a revolution in pointillism.  As George is drawn into his work, the rest of life recedes from him, and his model/mistress Dot is among the collateral damage.  Act 2 jumps to the U.S. in the present day (well, 1984,) where another George – Seurat’s great-grandson – is confronted by his own artistic fame.  He’s made a name for himself constructing beloved but increasingly derivative works, and he’s not sure if his path is where he’s supposed to be.

 

Both sides of the story examine, from different angles, the enormity and power of art.  The George in France gives everything for his art; his contemporaries can’t understand what he’s trying to do, and Dot grows dissatisfied with playing second fiddle.  And yet, he’s propelled by an internal impetus to create, unable to stop even if he wanted to.  Act 1’s musical treatise is “Finishing the Hat,” in which George explores the hold his work has over him.  George watches “the rest of the world from a window” while he feeds his need to create something.  It controls him, and he ruefully acquiesces.  He admits “the woman who won’t wait for you knows / That, however you live, / There’s a part of you always standing by, / Mapping out the sky.”

 

The failed romance with Dot is heartbreaking.  As with Parade’s End, here are two people who love each other, but neither can give the other what they need.  Dot doesn’t feel she’s a necessary part of George’s life, and George doesn’t understand why he has to share himself with her.  The conflict comes to a mournful head in “We Do Not Belong Together.”  The confronted George argues, “I am what I do – / Which you know, / Which you always knew, / Which I thought you were a part of!”  Dot replies that, while George is “complete” on his own, “I am unfinished, / I am diminished with or without you.”  She’s desperate for him to fight for her, and he just can’t.  In the end, as she walks out, she wistfully notes that they “should have belonged together.”

 

In Act 2, the American George isn’t consumed by his art, but it does rule his fears.  Act 2’s biggest number is “Putting It Together,” where George frenetically flits between sycophants and possible patrons, shamelessly schmoozing with the justifying mantra that “art isn’t easy.”  He fakes “cocktail conversation” and smilingly swallows criticism to stay on top.  He’s frantic to stay relevant, terrified of becoming “last year’s sensation.”  In the art world, “you’re new or else you’re through,” and he’s dug himself so far into an artistic rut that he’s not sure he can get out.

 

It’s a gorgeous show, with an arresting score, reflective lyrics, and tremendous themes.  In the original cast, Mandy Patinkin was stellar as both Georges, and Dot probably remains Bernadette Peters’s best performance.  The album is incredible, but if you can, watch the video of the 1984 production.  Patikin and Peters are incredible, and the score is almost overwhelmingly affecting.