So I gave Sunday in the Park another try... — Page 2

Sondheim is NOT an easy gentleman to get into. I've been listening to 'Company' since last August (OBC first ) and it's only in the last couple of weeks I've grown to really enjoy it. I still haven't managed to tap into 'Into The Woods', although I'm still trying because I know it'll click for me one day. I'm mostly there with 'Sunday In The Park With George', but I'm another one who's not quite managed to wrap themselves around most of act 2. (Plus he was DEFINITELY high when he wrote the dog song. ) Sondheim is NOT a crowd-pleaser, and it will take repeated exposure to fully appreciate his works.

Although I loved 'Assassins' right off bat... not sure what happened there...

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"Sondheim is NOT an easy gentleman to get into."



Weez--Nah... I'll keep my mouth shut.

I won't go there. But I almost did!

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Updated On: 3/2/07 at 05:28 PM

because I feel the score calls attention to itself, rather than the characters or their emotions.

- Obviously you haven't listened to WE DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER, and MOVE ON. Two songs that brilliantly display the complex relationship and emotions between the two characters. Those to me are 2 of the most emotional songs ever written for the stage. Same for CHILDREN AND ART, a brilliant display of what we leave behind when we leave this earth. These 3 songs including SUNDAY, and BEAUTIFUL can bring me to tears. They bring out so many emotions in me.

Updated On: 3/2/07 at 05:29 PM

"Obviously," you didn't read my initial post. I've watched and listened to the show several times. Don't give me that crap when we simply have differing interpretations of the same material.

You're beautifully illustrating my point, though, so let me add to my definition of "pretentious." It's not just the show, it's the snobby, judgmental attitude of some of its biggest fans.

I just don't understand how people can be bored by this masterpiece!

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Oh, Besty, you didn't!

Ljay, I'm with you. I respect everyone's opinions but I don't get how people can consider this show to be cold when it features songs like: "We Do Not Belong Together" (a heart-breaking climatic moment in which an artist and his lover realize why they cannot be part of each other's life anymore, lyrics like "no one is you and no one can be, but no one is me, George, no one is me" are so full of intensity and emotion), "Beautiful," "Finishing the Hat," "Move On," "Children & Art," I mean the list of songs that hit an emotional chord in this show is almost endless. I think this is Sondheim's most passionate score and I find it so thrilling and emotionally satisfying by the end.

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Danielm: Yes, it's not that we don't like it. It's that we don't understand it.

That attitude is only going to confirm people's assessments that the show is pretentious, btw.

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I understand it, and even like a few of the songs, but by and large I find the show dull dull dull.

Plus I can't get past the fact that George isn't played by a Chinese dwarf.

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Updated On: 3/2/07 at 05:43 PM

....

I love Kringas.

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I understand the feminist critique of the show itself but I think you really have to consider the context of Act I. What kind of options did Dot have during the 1800s as a single pregnant woman? She was already criticized and isolated from the rest of the people in the park for being George's mistress. She did love him and by being his muse, she did more for him than he could get himself to admit during "We Do Not Belong Together" ("why do you insist you must hear the words when you know I cannot give you words?"). Once Dot is pregnant she uses her sexuality and her charms to get Louis, a bland man who nevertheless takes care of her. What kind of a living can Dot make without him in the state that she is in? She decides to go to America because she knows her own well-being and her own future (and her daughter's) will never be fulfilled by George. Instead of being a typical, devoted, resignated lover, Dot decides to make choices for herself.
In Act II Marie is the only person connecting George to his emotions. Sondheim and Lapine show how destructive artists can be to the women in their lives, notice the fact that second act George is divorced and rather cynical. Then, it is Dot herself who makes him understand himself and come to terms with his work and his own self. Yes, you could argue that women are only there to help the men in Act II. But Sondheim and Lapine make sure to show that without this woman, this muse, art and artists perhaps wouldn't be who they are. I find this piece to have strong feminist undertones.

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ljay889: I was being sarcastic... I hate when people assume that you don't like something because you just don't "get" it. For instance, the plot isn't incoherent, it's "deep"! (not in reference to Sunday, btw.)

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So. Let me get this straight. Calling something pretentious equals not being able to comprehend it? WTF??? Can I just say that it insulting to say the very least. I love Aaron Sorkin and he is as pretentious as it gets. Speaking of him,...


It occurred to me earlier today that Sondheim is a lot like Aaron Sorkin. Both have certain agendas and lots of rhetoric to spill and lots that they want the audience to think about and both have that same certain guilty white male liberal stance towards women and minorities in their work. Does that make their work less enjoyable? For me, no. Does it make it problematic for me as much as I enjoy it? yes. Do I have the right as a fan to critique their shortcomings as artists? Yes. Sorkin's sexism is as sickening as Sondheim's, but they do create some memorable women characters despite that, but still... (And I will never get the lot of you who think that you can't critique a person's work just because he or she is a genius. Or are you too afraid to because he or she is a genius?)

No one answered my earlier question. What, if any, differences are there between the OCR and London revival of Sunday?