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

[Danielm]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:16pm

I don't find the score cold at all. While it may have a cool surface it has a deep, roiling beneath. I don't think it portrays ALL patrons of the arts or artists in any way--it portrays these certain patrons and artists in certain ways. Also, I'm sure everyone is aware that there are women artists--but that's not what this show is about--why don't you (or someone) write a musical about that and then we can judge that on its own merits. I can accept that some people don't like it--I don't like everything Sondheim has written, but I often think people call things "pretentious" when they don't understand them. Why is it pretentious? Because it doesn't have an easily digestible score that you are humming before you enter the theatre? Because it deals with issues that cannot be easily summed up in a numbo? I think it's easy to call something pretentious--but I would like to hear why.

As to the song with the dogs--The dogs are represented in the painting, they are opposites in many ways but both complain about their lots in life, and as he paints George puts himself in their shoes--I think that is lovely. If you don't like it, that's fine, but whithin the context of the show I believe it makes perfect sense. Every one of the characters represented in the painting gets to have a litany of complaints in that section of the show--why not the dogs. Get over that he's using the voices of the dogs and listen to what it's saying.

[Weez]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:20pm

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...

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:26pm

Ok, I'll bite. In this case, I use the term "pretentious" because I feel the score calls attention to itself, rather than the characters or their emotions. It continually takes me out of the drama, focusing my ears on the harmonies and rhythms (in other words, the composer) rather than the language of the characters.

Sondheim often walks that fine line. More often than not, though, I think he manages to balance his style with the characters and drama. In the case of Sunday, however, the scale is tipped too far in the wrong direction.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:28pm

"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!

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

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:28pm

I don't understand the struggle people have with Sondheim. For me, his work has always clicked immediately.

I remember quite vividly the first time I listened to SITPWG. I was truly awestruck, then bawling like a baby, and finally left wondering how I had lived my life prior to that point without ever before experiencing the richness of that score.

It's probably one of my most listened to albums, and despite the fact that I have listened to it hundreds of times, I always can find some new musical intricacy or little hidden jewel that is new to me and excites me.

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:29pm

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

[Danielm]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:30pm

I don't believe that it does draw attention to itself at the expense of the characters. I always feel that it draws me into their world--a world where thay are experimenting with ideas and concepts. And I'm always moved, even to tears, at certain points, especially in "We Do Not Belong Together" and "Move On".

Also, all of you who claim some knowlege that Sondheim was on drugs for the dog songs--publish the tox-screens and I'll give you some merit.

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:33pm

"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.

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:33pm

Another thing. When the revival comes next year. I hope audiences will respect and accept it. We don't need the walk outs like the show had in 84. The last thing we need is lame tourists and teenyboppers complaining in the middle of the show of how it's so boring.


^ Mother, I'm not even one of the shows biggest fans. I love it, but I'm not a fanatic about it like I am with FOLLIES. I will go to the end defending my Follies! Updated On: 3/2/07 at 05:33 PM

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:34pm

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

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:35pm

Well there, we have something in common. I love Follies too! :)

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:36pm

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.

[lildogs]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:37pm

Wild-it's not a biography--so anything about Seurat's own personal life is almost moot. It doesn't matter if Dot is real or not because the entire show is a "What if?"

You're also very caught up in the race and gender of the creators, why?

You also (I think) misinterpret the roles of Dot and Marie. Dot leaves George because he doesn't give her what she needs--what's more empowered than that? She's not pining away like a Lee Krasner--she leaves for a less dazzling but happier partner. She's in full control of her sexuality and uses it. She wants to matter too, but in the end, realizes that being happy on earth is more important than being remembered in death.

And Marie isn't there to support George the artist, but George the person--she helps him feel a connection to the world. She is the one who makes him realize that chromos don't keep you warm at night.

George wants to change the world because he doesn't fit in--he wants to change us so that we will in turn cherish him. It's a plea for love and acceptance--it's not about pointillism.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:37pm

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.

[Mother's Younger Brother]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:40pm

Many of the songs you've mentioned as emotional stand-outs DO work for me, outside the context of the show. IN the context of the show, as part of the bigger picture, the sum of its parts, etc., I just feel like they get burried. Too many other elements of the show/score have already alienated me by the time many of those moments occur.

[Kringas]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:43pm

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.

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

[lildogs]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:46pm

Are Sondheim and Lapine ignorant of the artistic contributions of diminutive Asian artists?

How tall was Mako?

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:46pm

....

I love Kringas.

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:55pm

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

- That just makes you sound ignorant, honestly. It's not hard to understand at all. You make it sound like it's in a foreign language and you aren't capable of understanding it.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 5:57pm

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.

[Danielm]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 6:57pm

In addition to people saying something is "pretentious" because they don't understand it, I also think "pretentiousness" does not automatically make something bad. I think it often means artists are trying to stretch or explore something new. How many great works of art were dismissed as "pretentious" when they were first presented?

I find it interesting that Sondheim's work is being done more and more in regional and college theatres--and that "Sunday" is being done quite often and quite often it is done very well.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 7:01pm

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.)

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 8:49pm

^ Oh good. I was hoping you were being sarcastic!

[Wild Roses]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 9:57pm

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?

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/2/07 at 10:00pm

The London revival recording has a lot more dialogue, etc.

I just don't see how Sondheim is "sexist." That is such a ridiculous statement.

If you have problems with the story being sexist and stereotypical, A LOT of lies on Lapine's part. He wrote the book. Not Sondheim. Updated On: 3/2/07 at 10:00 PM