Is Sunday in the Park the best musical ever?- Page 2

[newintown]

Posted: 12/14/16 at 8:29am

Sunday has always been one of my favorite shows; it's about something that matters to me. I can see how others don't care.

However, the original production is still the only one which has thoroughly satisfied me (of about 10 productions I've seen), which is why I will avoid the upcoming (brief) revival.

Updated On: 12/14/16 at 08:29 AM

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 2:47pm

GavestonPS said: "OlBlueEyes said: "...

I saw the opening night and I've never seen an audience so bored. People snored around me until the laser show when the woman next to me shouted at the stage, "I guess this might be interesting if I were REALLY STONED!"

 

"

Now I'm totally imagining and laughing about a situation where someone, who is unfamiliar with the show, falling asleep in the middle of the first act and then waking up to find that lighting show happening on stage.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 3:23pm

But no one's done that, so why not let everyone enjoy the discussion?

It's more about feeding the troll.  The OP has about a couple dozen screen names just to pretend to be a newbie and post stupid question threads to either provoke others or spam the site.  

[dianamorales]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 5:15pm

because of the second act, its far from being the best ever, but some of the songs (especially sunday and move on) could be.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 6:07pm

henrikegerman said: "Caring about characters in drama is not the same as finding people sympathetic in life.   "Likability" means something very different on stage than it does in life.

When we speak of likability and or caring about characters in drama what we mean is that we are interested in them.  If we don't find them interesting, we don't care about them.  

It has nothing to do with finding them sympathetic in the sense that we might sympathize or fail to sympathize with people we know, meet or hear about in our lives.  It has nothing to do with wanting them as our friends or wanting them as far away from us as possible.  It has everything to do with them and their situations and choices being engaging, involving, refreshing, evocative, cathartic, and or compelling.  

 

 


"

 

(Emphasis added.) Yes, but I still think "sympathetic" is the right word to describe the post to which I was replying; his argument sounds akin to the classical misreading of Aristotle that a tragic agent must be "likable" or at least virtuous. The artists I mentioned have no greater interest in sympathy or empathy on your terms than in Corneille's (or even Arthur Miller's). Brecht, I suspect, would laugh out loud at the entire notion; he's rather specific that characters need only be interesting to the extent they remind us of issues and conflicts in our own lives. (But I can see where that may have been your point, henrik.)



Updated On: 12/15/16 at 06:07 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 6:12pm

Theater_Nerd said: "Do you all realize that you are playing right into the original poster's game? This person could care less if anyone thinks "Sunday in the Park with George" is the best musical ever. This person created this thread on purpose, to get board members all bent out of shape and then get them to respond defensively for their own enjoyment and amusement.

How does anyone on here not know this? 

 

 

"

Everyone knows this. We're not having a discussion to please the OP; we're exchanging ideas for our own benefit. SUNDAY is a highly polarizing show, which I happen to find tedious, but which is beloved by many people I respect. It's the perfect subject for a discussion, troll or no troll. IMO, obviously, and everyone else has a scroll bar.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 6:18pm

ScottyDoesn'tKnow2 said: "GavestonPS said: "OlBlueEyes said: "...

I saw the opening night and I've never seen an audience so bored. People snored around me until the laser show when the woman next to me shouted at the stage, "I guess this might be interesting if I were REALLY STONED!"

 

"

Now I'm totally imagining and laughing about a situation where someone, who is unfamiliar with the show, falling asleep in the middle of the first act and then waking up to find that lighting show happening on stage.

 

"

That is a funny image, but the woman who shouted had been awake all along. It was others who were snoring. She was pretty loud, though, and probably woke many of the latter.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 6:43pm

OlBlueEyes said: ""
I don't mean to be unkind, but apparently your theatrical education never got to Brecht, Piscator, Beckett, Artaud, Genet or even Joe Orton. There are lots of things theater can offer besides sympathetic characters.

Please. Let us call a spade a spade. If you did not want to be unkind, then you would not have written something that you thought would be taken as unkind. There are those who take pleasure in saying unkind things.

But you are correct. My theatrical education never got to any of those gentlemen, not even Joe Orton. In fact, I could never for the life of me figure out why, in the name of theatrical education, anyone would try to impose Oedipus Rex on an unsuspecting student. But you probably dug Sophocles.

Henry James has always been one of my most favorite novelists. He writes long, verbose paragraphs full of run-on sentences. The only "action" in any of his novels is psychological, and even this can be so subtle as to be missed on first reading.

An invitation to read one of his novels can send many intelligent and well educated people running out of the room screaming. That's fine. Different Strokes.

And I'm being absolutely sincere when I say that I wish I shared the breadth of your ability to take pleasure in such a diversity of musical theater.

You enjoy very much Oklahoma and also Company. The first begins with Curley out in the fields singing the lyrical "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin." The second with a group of people chanting "Bobby, Bobby, Bobby Baby, Bobby Bubi, Robby." I just can't encompass both.


 

 

"

Honestly, OlBlue, I meant what I said. The theory of theater you were taught stops roughly with the Romantics of the early 1800s and Coleridge's ideas about the suspension of disbelief. The idea that the spectator should "care" about the characters is still very popular in much of film and TV, but was discarded over a century ago by the modernists and post-modernists of the theater. (Henrik has already made the excellent point that modernists expect "caring" in differing senses of the word, but I think I understood what you meant.)

I said "I don't mean to be unkind" because the ideas you expressed are still held by many and I didn't mean to suggest you were ignorant or uneducated, just that you haven't been exposed to certain other ideas yet. Yes, I am capable of being unkind but more often a simple opinion of mine is taken as unkindness; in this case, I hoped to do neither. If you took offense, I sincerely apologize.

Especially because you do me the compliment of recalling other posts of mine from other threads. Now THAT is kindness (and also a power of recall with which I cannot compete). Yes, I do like OKLAHOMA! and COMPANY equally--because each does what it sets out to do and does it perfectly. I had a great opera course in college (composer Jack Beeson was the professor) where I learned that all art is a product of conventions. (Fine Art history classes helped as well.) Since then I have tried to judge whatever I see based on the conventions the work itself sets out.

In the case of SUNDAY, I think we're invited to expect the play will explore the static personae of Seurat's painting and flesh out their lives. This seems an exciting prospect, one that will only cause us to look anew at the overly familiar painting. But it turns out to be a red herring in a show that wants to dramatize the creative process, but ends up doing so no better than NINE. (I keep thinking of David Merrick's pronouncement on FOLLIES: "Nobody cares about the private lives of artists." I don't agree in re FOLLIES, but SUNDAY...)

The more I think about it, I'm not sure you and I disagree at all. We just have different training and tend to express our views differently.

[BWAY Baby2]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 6:59pm

I loved Sunday In The Park when I saw it years ago with Patinkin and Peters- I did not know what to expect when I saw it- and truthfully there were no other tickets for shows I wanted to see that day- so we settled with Sunday- which completely knocked me out. I agree that the second act was week- I remember thinking that when I saw it- and the music is excellent- love it- Streisand does a lot of the music and does a good job with it- but it is not IMO the greatest musical ever- if there even is such a thing which of course there is not. I would put Fiddler, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Hamilton and A Chorus Line ahead of Sunday- my opinion- but it is a great musical and I do love it- along with many others. I would see it with Gylenhaal if you get the chance- I don't want to see it again with so much else to choose from that I have not already seen.

[backwoodsbarbie]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 8:24pm

Cats: Now and Forever

[BWAY Baby2]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 9:17pm

Not for me- I do not like cats- and I did not like Cats.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/17/16 at 10:04pm

"I like cats but I do not like them to jump on my back."

---Gertrude Stein, Paris, France (opening line, I believe)

*******

Obviously, she had never seen the show.