Sunday in the Park...George - ACT II- Page 3

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 6:34pm

I think they're fine--in discussion threads you only eem to use them when appropriate. (God, I sound like a teacher)

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 7:31pm

I have never bought the idea that the second half is in any way inferior..it's just unexpected. For me, the real heart of the piece is found in the second act - The first act is the cerebral half - about making a work of art. The second act shows (those who care about it anyhow)why it matters. I believe that you wouldn't care as much about the first act if there was no second act.

Curiously, people to whom I have shown the video seem to fall in love with the show from that exposure. Yet, many people I meet who first saw the show on stage will complain they found it boring and uninvolving.

I saw it just a few months into the run, having heard the cast album a few times and found it a moving and thrilling theatrical experience. The fact that it provokes such a diverse range of opinions from both reviewers and audience members is to be expected.

What does puzzle me is the hostility it rouses from those who don't like it, as if the fact that others who enjoy the show are "sick" and need to be "cured" of their delusions. You mention that the show won the Pulitzer Prize and they gleefully remind you that it "lost" the Tony Award. You point out that it has had a large number of revivals, and they are only to happy to remind us that the original Broadway run (of 604 performances) was not profitable.

I am reminded of Ethan Mordden's description of the moment in the original staging of COMPANY when at the climax if "Side By Side by Side" Robert has no one complete his dance step. As Mordden relates, people who love theatre were stimulated by it, those who were looking for the standard tired businessman's show were baffled. No only baffled, the growing enthusiasm of the supporters irritated the detractors, who then felt they had to declaim as loudly as possible what a failure the show was. That split has followed not only the Sondheim shows but most contemporary musicals, as anyone who regularly reads BWW will attest.

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 7:53pm

"You mention that the show won the Pulitzer Prize and they gleefully remind you that it "lost" the Tony Award"

Why did you place quotation marks around lost but not around won?

Your post is of the same condescendng ilk as our pal, Joey's.

So why should you be surprised that people take umbrage at you and your ilk?

"As Mordden relates, people who love theatre were stimulated by it, those who were looking for the standard tired businessman's show were baffled. "

What a joke. I love theatre, and I certainly wasn't baffled by it. Fact is, no one gave a good God damn about it. Updated On: 9/2/12 at 07:53 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 7:56pm

I don't THINK I've been hostile here, frontrow. If I appeared to be so, I apologize.

I think I was perhaps put out when I first saw the show in workshop and on opening night, but not because I didn't "get it" and resented those who did.

I walk into every new Sondheim show expecting my life to be profoundly changed. Not fair, I know, but it's happened more often than one might think. So if I react strongly in a negative fashion, it's out of disappointment.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 8:02pm

"What a joke. I love theatre..."

What a joke.

And, once again, AfterEight delights in telling someone they're being condescending.

Just admit it. You're a gleeful troll, eagerly pushing the buttons of those around you. A troll with a penchant for dredging up long-forgotten shows on IBDB and littering his posts with the most pretentious turns of phrase, but a troll nevertheless.

[ljay889]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 8:03pm

^ Bingo.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 8:04pm

Well, at least the Real Housewives of Everywhere came out to discuss Stephen Sondheim. That's something rare, I think.

***

best12bars, I think you are right about the characters of FOLLIES. And all that narcissism and self-obsession strikes me as entirely human, just as it does in Albee's VIRGINIA WOOLF.

And to be fair, Georges/George (no, I don't think they are the same person) aren't much different. (ETA because I swore above not to criticize SUNDAY any more.)

Honestly, I'm not sure why one set of characters moves me and the other set annoys me, and it's just the reverse with you, best12. But I agree we needn't pity each other; we each get a complex show to explore over and over. Updated On: 9/2/12 at 08:04 PM

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 8:10pm

^

Hey, buddy, I don't need IBDB to dredge up long-forgotten shows. I call them up from memory, where, obviously, they have not been forgotten. It's something called knowledge. Ever hear of that?

That's what bugs you. That theatre existed before you did, and that people know about it, and admire it.

Poor guy.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 8:15pm

A decisive and ridiculous evasive maneuver, considering I've expressed love and admiration for shows and performers from before my time.

Funny thing about knowledge: in the Internet age, it can be acquired very quickly.

What was the first Broadway show you saw, After Eight? Because you've referenced shows that ran in the mid-50s and were never revived... you'd have to well into your 70s to fondly recall seeing them.

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 8:34pm

^

Read carefully, pal. Memory means being able to call up stored knowledge. When I was a youngster, I knew the titles, plots, and data of plays 20 years before I was born. And I can still call them up. So I don't need any internet to tell me about Pride's Crossing or The Pink Elephant.


And if you resent my knowledge, well......

Tough.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 8:44pm

I understood your post. You, apparently, willingly chose to ignore the question I asked in mine.

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 8:57pm

^

Actually, it seems you did not understand it at all.

I don't go about claiming having seen, either fondly or otherwise, plays I never saw. I've seen enough plays not to have to make up having seen more.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 9:31pm

Your continuance to evade a perfectly reasonable question says more than any answer you would have given. Thank you.

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 9:39pm

Buddy, you don't get it.

It was not reasonable at all.

It was in bad faith.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 9:58pm

I "get it". I "understand". You do, too, which is why you're doing this insipid little high-horsed tap dance. You can parse my words all you like, you can imply that I just can't understand what you write, you can down your nose at me... all that nonsense you do to bait your hook. All you're doing is making yourself look like a flustered fraud. And, very soon, you'll declare that you are above this and will then scurry away.

[After Eight]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 10:17pm

I'm not in the slightest bit flustered.

I'm simply not answering your question.

It was accusatory and in bad faith.

You accuse me of lying about the shows I've seen.

I guess it never occurred to you that if I lied about that, then I could equally just as easily lie in answer to your question.

But I don't lie.

I just won't answer your question.






Updated On: 9/2/12 at 10:17 PM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 10:25pm

I was bored with this thread until I saw Nene Leakes so I, for one, say keep the gifs coming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQx2RGJ5-HU

[justoldbill]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 10:39pm

In the internet age, knowledge is NOT acquired quickly. Information is. And they are not one and the same. And none of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE comes close to COMPANY's incompleted tap break in pointing up a character's failure to commit to another person, which is what a lot of both shows is about. Michael Bennett is missed.

Besides, if we're going to nit-pick between "Georges" and "George", shouldn't it be SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGES?

Updated On: 9/2/12 at 10:39 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/2/12 at 11:40pm

[justoldbill]

Posted: 9/3/12 at 10:11pm

For the facile finger
Listeners will linger;
They will be impressed
If you ges-
Applaud with zest
If you ges-
If it's a question
Of a story gory,
Sinbad in bad,
Bottle, smoke, Genie, arms,
Fly- sky- high- I state,
Reiterate,
Gesticulate-
With your hands!
WITH YOUR HAAAAANDS!!!!!


(Any way we could blue-screen in Mary Rodgers as Lalume?)

Updated On: 9/3/12 at 10:11 PM

[Nettik]

Posted: 9/4/12 at 7:11pm

As someone who studied Fine Arts, including Art History and studio art courses, this is one of my favorite musicals of all time. I'm a Sondheim fan, but I'd hardly consider myself a cultish fan. While I have "Finishing the Hat" and "Look, I Made a Hat," I find many of his shows to not strike an emotional chord with me and that they fall flat.

SITPWG is not one of those shows. It was my first introduction to Sondheim. When I was doing some research for one of my classes, I came across the musical. I thought the idea sounded intriguing and found a few clips on YouTube. I was hooked and immediately bought the OBC of the show and listened to it while working on one of my projects. Somehow in my foray into YouTube, I hadn't heard "Finishing the Hat." Halfway through the song, I couldn't see the paper I was working on through the tears. Sondheim captured so vividly what it means to be an artist and the sacrifices that are made in the process.

"Putting it Together" was basically my entire Art Seminar/Modern Art and Business class rolled into seven minutes, but I'll admit that apart from the finale, I found the second act rather disjointed.

Soon after, I got the DVD, and fell in love with the second act. I highly enjoy the first act, and feel that the storytelling is more solid, but without the second act, the show doesn't work for me. So, Seurat had issues with his mistress and she got knocked up. Big whoop. Yes, it's tragic, but from the beginning it was clear that Seurat and Dot were going to have issues.

It isn't until the second act that the events of the first act have a meaning other than entertainment for the audience. The events have affected the characters in the present day, and that is where the connection for the contemporary audience comes in. It's not as important that the second act has a clear start-to-finish sort of storytelling. The act is to demonstrate the way that Seurat and Dot's choices in life have affected their progeny.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/4/12 at 7:16pm

^ Beautifully put , Nettik.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/4/12 at 7:21pm

Nettik, just for the record, I took the same Art History courses and made the pilgrimage to Chicago to see the original painting years before I saw the show. It isn't Seurat to whom I object.

I just don't care for the play. (I say this not to start a quarrel with you, but to demonstrate that liking SUNDAY isn't an automatic benefit of formal education.)

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/4/12 at 7:23pm

Just for the record, I'm not negating your posts, Gav.

I just don't agree with them. But I do respect them.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/4/12 at 7:43pm

I said the same thing about your posts, best12. My remarks are probably a page or so back before the argument broke out between others.

I assumed you and I were disagreeing respectfully. And even Pal Joey's "pity"--when I think about it, he and I have known each other long enough to speak in strong terms. No harm done.