Ah, details, details:
The pre-show interview: Stephen Sondheim on stage. Reason enough to live in Chicago, to love the crowd that attends and listens. Who will be here in twenty years? Nobody. There is nobody to take his place. What he has done, what he stands for, the intelligence, the sophistication, the craft, the light and the weight of it, it's all dying. Pay attention. Be present. Be grateful.
Act I: Costumes in coffees and creams, a neutral palette; you cannot compete with the colors in that painting, so why try? The effect is the same.
Audra is gorgeous but somehow too contemporary—too bold? Her voice is strong, glorious, but ultimately bigger than the role requires. She drowns out Michael in the duets. He is better on his own, and freer, especially with “The Day Off,” a number I’ve always skipped on the CD. (He barks like a dog? He barks like a dog!) Some 14 years after I first heard this music, it is new for me again. Shame on me. A small treasure I’ve been overlooking all along. And as for my dear Patti: she is magic. One brief song, one brief scene, when Yvonne confesses to Dot that her husband will not paint her—“Too flat. Too angular.”—you glimpse the heart of something.
And throughout: Seurat’s sketches projected against a blank white screen, as we see what he sees in his pad. The end of the act is thrilling as always, the characters align and shift, and shift again, reach their final positions and freeze—a breath, a heartbeat, a shiver—as “the Seurats” sweep the white canvas away and you see it in full for the first time. A masterpiece. Here the presence of the orchestra onstage is obtrusive; it effectively cuts the painting in half. But that moment is enough. It is what lasts.
Act II: Michael Cerveris: I can’t be the first person who sees Mike Myers doing Dr. Evil? A minor distraction, but all those poor Seurats, forced to shave their heads; goodness, that is dedication for a three-performance concert. (Note that Patti’s son was spared.) “Putting It Together”: the lyrics are a bit muddied, but Michael does well with a difficult scene, fixing his doubles in their places, pulling them back when they threaten to drift away. Audra as Marie is magnificent—warm, funny as hell, calming. Here is the character, not the actress. “Children and Art” is by far her best number. In “Move On,” we revert—Audra can be heard over the orchestra, but Michael’s voice is frequently lost.
And the finale: The characters, ghosts now, return once more to take up their poses (and again, it is thrilling), but the background rehearsal film playing over the final chords diminishes the whole. The intent is clear (and powerful; there is a final shot of the actors standing in their characters’ positions on the grounds of the Ravinia park, trees towering behind them; it fades to white as an image of Sondheim and Lapine fades in), but where should my attention be? Here or there? An odd staging choice that makes what should be resonant feel rushed.
But complaints are trivial. The summer ends as all summers should, and I am reminded. Lesson: Ask yourself every day, again and again and again, in the midst of all this deep, unknowing darkness: what is your greatest joy in life? And then find an answer.
This is mine.
Updated On: 9/5/04 at 11:19 AM
Sunday in the Park With George is quite possibly my favorite Sondheim, but I wonder if it would be that way without the performances of Mandy Patinkin and especially the magnificent Bernadette Peters.
, but I don't think that can ever kill your love for the show. Of course, that could be because I have the DVD of the original cast to get back to and make me feel better. I'm sorry to hear Michael Cerveris didn't do too well last night. I wish I could have seen Raul Esparza in the role. He's one very talented performer...
.jpg?format=auto&width=300)
