It's very interesting (and not surprising) that a lot of people who love this show didn't at first. Add me to that group. I fell asleep the first 3 times I tried watching the DVD. I couldn't really appreciate it until a) I was forced to watch it for Sondheim class (ha) and then b) I analyzed the score and understood the brilliance of the show and the higher meaning it has than just painted art.
So yeah, feel like sharing what I learned about the brilliance of this show. Indulge me if you know all this stuff already
Sondheim I believe denies this, but it's hard to ignore the parallels between Searut and Sondheim, particularly after the failure of Merrily. He does admit the similarity of their techniques, however. Sondheim was concerned with the relationship between music and mathematics, the way Seurat was concerned with scientiic precision of all the dots of his painting. They both break their works up into its component parts and then recombine them into a whole piece. Sondheim also relates to the long, tedious process of creating art. And they are both extremely committed to their art.
The musical itself is quite similar to the painting--it's a pointilist musical. Each distinct note in the score is like one of the dots in the painting. The introduction of most of the characters is fleeting and fragmented. They are perceived through Seurat's eyes--configurations of color and light.
The arpeggio that starts the show becomes the motif for Seurat's primary colors. Sondheim fragments his lyrics and musical themes the way Seaurat fragments the painting into dots. With each of the words Seaurat states at the beginning--design, composition, tension, balance, light and harmony--Sondheim adds a little something to the arpeggio. A bit of dissonance, more complex patterns, and resolved dissonance during "harmony."
In Sunday in the Park With George, to express Dot's static boredom, Sondheim fills her music with staccatos. Dot breaks down each element of her discomfort the way Seurat breaks down his painting. This music contrasts with the music played when she sings of loving Seurat's paintings--fluid chords, which also pop up throughout the show.
The music becomes more chaotic when it suggests the addition of more colors, textures and shapres.
It's hard to ignore parallels between Jules' and Yvonne's critique of Seurat and real criticism of Sondheim.
The music is clearly pointilist during "color and light" as the whole action of putting bits of dots on are fragmented, interrupted but sips of drinks and what-not.
There's an interesting commentary on mind and body in this song--Seurat is in a mind of creative bliss, while Dot represents sensual flesh, making herself pretty. And her sensuality is the his inspiration. As for dot, each pluck of the eyebrow is set to a bell chime, again integrating the action with the music.
Also in this song, Sondheim creates a musical stream-of-consciousness, as Seaurat sings of nonconnected and nongrammatic words, word colors are shaped and distorted, etc.
The music of Dot and Seurat often contrast against each other. His painting is expressed in song, her concerns are expressed in prose, until she describes her love in poetry.
During the next scene in the park, all the gossip and commentary is arranged into discrete units, like those that form the painting. Seurat is bombarded with sound, shape, color, and light.
It is also fascinating to see how George sings for the song, completely leaving the real world, and entering the world of his creation--this world is more colorful, peaceful and harmonic--obviously an important theme in the musical. Sondheim explores the idea of reality as the sum total of many different perspectives.
The dog's world is also seen in bits of pieces. The discussion between the two dogs serves as a metaphor between class differences. Again, as the other characters join them, they are seen incomplete, as fragments.
In "Everybody Loves Louis," Dot's feeling for the two men are musically contrasted. She sings about Louis in an upbeat tempo, and the repeated rhythm suggests an uncomplicated life with him. Her relationship with George is sung in slow, long lines.
This song contains one of my favorite lyrics of the show:
"And there are Louis's
And there are Georges--
Well, Louis's
And George."
This song also comments on the difference between popular and unpopular artists.
In "Finishing the Hat," all of the opening arpeggios are utilized. It's one of the few times in the show Seurat speaks of any world but his own world of inner creativity. But not for long. He quickly retreats to his own world, working on the painting. The isolated loneliness of the artist is explained here. Seurat truly makes a decision between worlds here....planning a sky...but they go until there's nothing left but the sky. He chooses his own world.
The music constantly changes and is non-repetitive in this song--as art evolves, it is changes and modified.
And god.."Look I made a hat where there never was a hat." I love this song!
Again, Jules critique of Seurat's art echoes the criticism of Sondheim's art--the idea that you can't see the character's faces is similar to the way Sondheim sometimes portrays characters as fragments, like in Sunday or Company. Sondheim also admits (though not without saying how much Lapine contributed to writing Seurat as well) that a lot of his own desires were reflected in Seurat's obsession with creating something unique. Act 2 George shares this desire.
When Dot tells Seurat that she is leaving, the music becomes that of agitated rhythms as there is tension. When Seurat tries to explain and defend how he lives in the canvas, his original arpeggios are re-introduced.
It's also interesting to compare Dot's passion for Seurat's for his art. It's a great way to depict an artist's passion for his creation so non-artists can understand.
In "Beautiful," the the underscoring chords emphasize the passage of time and change when the mother sings. the way Seurat tries to convince her that all perception is beautiful--again going back to the idea of reality being the sum of different perspectives--gah!
And oh man...the final scene of the first act--"Sunday." The way there is so much tension and arguing and problems going on between these people, but how it all goes away as Seurat puts them in and creates the painting--the peacefulness of the world Seurat lives in. He "revise[s] the world" like he promises his mother he will.
Seurat begins to rearrange the characters into the painting to the sound of the arpeggios first heard in the show. Once again, the music has a great deal of dissonance, until it is all resolved during "harmony." This world takes on an important meaning, as this is the first time in the show that the ensemble combines into a full-voice harmony. Each voice reflects a different aspect of the painting--as they have in the score. Seurat is also finally able to show his love for Dot by leading her to the front of the painting. The lyrics in the song once again reflect Seurat's perception of the world--blue, red, triangular, etc. Colors and shapes.
The score combines into one final total one just as Seurat's painting does. All of the fragments of each character's songs has been combined into one glorious melody. The magic of the moment that the painting comes together largely has to do with the parallel of the score finally coming together.
The beginning of act 2 goes back to pointilistic, fragmental aspects of the score. Some of the fragmental music in the museum sequence becomes the theme in "Putting It Together." And you have to work to hear it, but this is the same theme of "Finishing the Hat." Sondheim uses the style and the songs and themes themselves to unite the two acts. The same arpeggios are played on a synthesizer, showing the common theme but the passage of time.
By calling his work chromo-luminarism, George ties himself to his grandfather by also being extremely concerned with color and light.
The brief technological problem presents an interesting satiring comment on modern "art." There's no denying parallels between the new mega musicals that rely very much on technology.
The beginning of "Art Isn't Easy" also echoes back to some of the chords in "Everybody Loves Louis." Of course, this is a brilliant song, as one would think George is talking about how creating art isn't easy, something Seurat would agree with, when in reality he is saying getting funding to create art--the politics of art isn't easy. Still, he is connected with his grandfather as his work must come to light. This song is also naturally accompanied by a fast frantic rhythm.
The song makes great use of this double entrende. The "connections" George wants to make are political ones, not human emotional ones or connections in his art. Preparation and execution are about convincing someone to finance his art, not creating the art. building up his own "image", etc. Playing this game makes George despise himself, his art, and his patrons.
Obviously, a great lyric is "so that you can go on exhibition--so that your work can go on exhibition." George frames the completed picture of the cardboard version of himself working the politics, like Seurat framed his painting.
"Children and art" seems to be an untypical Sondheim song--it is not complex, does not contain dissonance--it is a warm, simple lullaby, which is completely appropriate for Marie. In this scene, she describes how she sees bits of Dot in each aspect of the painting. She confirms Seurat's love for Dot to the audience.
When George is transformed to the Island, the theme of connection becomes central. Whereas Seurat was concerned with connection between the dots in his painting, George is trying to connect with his family tree, with a desire to continue art.
When Dot comes back to George, the melody when she decides to leave, is brought back, as are some of the arpeggios. The way the score connects itself in the end of act 1, it ocne again connects itself within the relatioinship of Dot and George. Sondheim explains:
"Theirs is a continuous and continuing love song that isn't completed until the end of the show. In the song 'Sunday in the Park With George, Dot, in one section, begins a lyrical theme, which is her affection and her love for George. This is picked up later in 'Color and Light,' and it develops and starts to reach a climax, and just at that point, they break off and they speak. Then in 'We Do Not Belong Together,' it's picked up and further developed as if it's almost where they left off, and ends with an unrhymed line where she sings 'I have to move on." And when their love is finally consummated, which is the end of the second act, it all comes together and becomes a completed song in 'Move On.' 'Move On' is a combination of all the themes involving their relationship, including every harmony and every accompaniment; it's where everything culminates."
As George finds his own renewal in faith and art, the melody of Finishing the Hat is briefly heard, and then finally the figures from the painting begin to come back, and sing Sunday. Once again, Dot supplying the word "Harmony" completes this transformation. As the figures bow to George, the audience sees that the artist takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.
and of course, the same opening and closing.
What an achievement.
Now only if it could be appreciated on a first viewing knowing nothing about Sondheim or anything like that...
"If there was a Mount Rushmore for Broadway scores, "West Side Story" would be front and center. It snaps, it crackles it pops! It surges with a roar, its energy and sheer life undiminished by the years" - NYPost reviewer Elisabeth Vincentelli
