#26
Posted: 2/21/08 at 9:52pm
Positive from the AP:
"And sing they do - quite wonderfully - at Studio 54 where the Roundabout Theatre Company has opened a stunning revival of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical.
"Sunday" is Sondheim's most personal score, an artful juggling of the cerebral and the emotional, a delicate balancing act perfectly captured here in a production that first earned cheers at a tiny London theatre in 2005.
The projections bring a fluidity to the revival, a brushstroke ease of movement that suggests the act of putting paint on canvas. But they would be only empty motion if the performances surrounding them were not compelling.
Fortunately, Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell are as fine as their starry predecessors in interpreting the obsessed painter and the woman who can't compete with his fierce artistic vision."
http://jam.canoe.ca/Theatre/2008/02/21/4866832-ap.html
4 (out of 4) stars from USA Today:
"In this London-based revival of Sunday(* * * * out of four), which opened Thursday at Roundabout Theatre Company's Studio 54, animated and projected images grant us further access to the inspiration and aspirations behind the imagined George's creative process and that of the great-grandson who shares his name.
It's in the second act that we meet the second George, also an artist, as well as his grandmother Marie, the product of the first George's relationship with his long-suffering mistress and model, the playfully named Dot. Lapine's tart libretto and Sondheim's witty, rapturous score focus on the two ambitious, tormented artists and the women who, in very different ways, love and frustrate them.
Both Georges are played by the same actor, while one actress juggles the two women. The superb Daniel Evans makes clear the generational distinctions between the Georges while linking their obsessive, narcissistic tendencies, and making them sympathetic nonetheless. Jenna Russell, a sassy, sensual Dot, is funny, touching and completely convincing as the 98-year-old but still-wily Marie. Buntrock also culls lovely supporting performances from Michael Cumpsty, Jessica Molaskey, Mary Beth Peil and others."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2008-02-21-sunday-park_N.htm
Positive from the Financial Times:
"The new actors - including Michael Cumpsty and Alexander Gemignani - discharge their duties splendidly. And Drew McVety seems to relish playing a baker named Louis, whom everyone loves and who has been seen as Sondheim's send-up of rival Broadway composers such as Jerry Herman.
Russell's Dot - Seurat's mistress - is neither as lyrically powerful nor as funny as Bernadette Peters was in 1984 but affecting just the same, especially as the elderly Marie in act two. Evans gives both his Seurat and Seurat's great-grandson a heart-catching flair: a genuine sense of the characters' belief in "so many possibilities". A final note: I have nothing but praise for the 3-D projections and I look forward to seeing a production of Sunday in which they play all the parts."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1922cf84-e0e8-11dc-b0d7-0000779fd2ac.html
"And sing they do - quite wonderfully - at Studio 54 where the Roundabout Theatre Company has opened a stunning revival of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical.
"Sunday" is Sondheim's most personal score, an artful juggling of the cerebral and the emotional, a delicate balancing act perfectly captured here in a production that first earned cheers at a tiny London theatre in 2005.
The projections bring a fluidity to the revival, a brushstroke ease of movement that suggests the act of putting paint on canvas. But they would be only empty motion if the performances surrounding them were not compelling.
Fortunately, Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell are as fine as their starry predecessors in interpreting the obsessed painter and the woman who can't compete with his fierce artistic vision."
http://jam.canoe.ca/Theatre/2008/02/21/4866832-ap.html
4 (out of 4) stars from USA Today:
"In this London-based revival of Sunday(* * * * out of four), which opened Thursday at Roundabout Theatre Company's Studio 54, animated and projected images grant us further access to the inspiration and aspirations behind the imagined George's creative process and that of the great-grandson who shares his name.
It's in the second act that we meet the second George, also an artist, as well as his grandmother Marie, the product of the first George's relationship with his long-suffering mistress and model, the playfully named Dot. Lapine's tart libretto and Sondheim's witty, rapturous score focus on the two ambitious, tormented artists and the women who, in very different ways, love and frustrate them.
Both Georges are played by the same actor, while one actress juggles the two women. The superb Daniel Evans makes clear the generational distinctions between the Georges while linking their obsessive, narcissistic tendencies, and making them sympathetic nonetheless. Jenna Russell, a sassy, sensual Dot, is funny, touching and completely convincing as the 98-year-old but still-wily Marie. Buntrock also culls lovely supporting performances from Michael Cumpsty, Jessica Molaskey, Mary Beth Peil and others."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2008-02-21-sunday-park_N.htm
Positive from the Financial Times:
"The new actors - including Michael Cumpsty and Alexander Gemignani - discharge their duties splendidly. And Drew McVety seems to relish playing a baker named Louis, whom everyone loves and who has been seen as Sondheim's send-up of rival Broadway composers such as Jerry Herman.
Russell's Dot - Seurat's mistress - is neither as lyrically powerful nor as funny as Bernadette Peters was in 1984 but affecting just the same, especially as the elderly Marie in act two. Evans gives both his Seurat and Seurat's great-grandson a heart-catching flair: a genuine sense of the characters' belief in "so many possibilities". A final note: I have nothing but praise for the 3-D projections and I look forward to seeing a production of Sunday in which they play all the parts."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1922cf84-e0e8-11dc-b0d7-0000779fd2ac.html
