anyone else see sunday in the park with kelli and manoel?

it was fan-freakin-taaaaaaaaaaastic!!!!!!!!!

i was in awe of kelli the whole night....she was perfection. incredible dot and marie.

ugh? and manoel? superb george....ugh. it was so great.

anyone else as lucky to see it?

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HA. I just replied your myspace bulletin, now this. haha.

But i'm dyyyyyyyying to see it. I'm so glad to hear it was amazing, I knew Kelli would sing the crap out of it.

So excited for you! Now i just need to go see it.

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well this is what i wrote in another thread:

i saw the show in its invitation dress rehearsal, and i was blown away. the first act especially. kelli was....beyond flawless. her dot was full of energy and life but yet so vulnerable. mano was great, very stern, very believeable that he wasn't a prick, he was just passionate about his art.

the second act was a bit of a let down after the first, but not too bad. the only thing it really had going for it was kelli as marie. shes flawless. its impossible not to be glued to this woman. shes a phenomenal performer.

the set is brilliant, and costumes are genuis.

its just splendid.

if you can, go see it please!!!!!!"

but to be more detailed, the set was on these rotating triangle thigns (my boyfriend said theyre called pariactoids or something like that) and so one side was color, one was "pencil" and the other blank, so they would rotate and move around the set to acheive a differnet effect. it was amazing. and the lighting both in act 1 and two (for the "color and light" and "chromalume 7" sections) was amazing. the costumes in the first act were plain beiges, pale yellows and browns, and white, so when they pose, and the true patinting comes down, its a bit wtf...but when act two opens, its the same picture of the cast but they are in colored costumes, true to the painting. the costumes are unreal because the colors of the costumes are made up of dots. the costumes designer mustve painted the fabric herself, or found amazing dotted fabrics, but it made it really feel like the painting. even the umbrellas were dotted. it was just brillant.

manoel was very stern, but loveable because you admired his passion as an audience member. he really explained how much this art form meant to him (for both george act 1 and george act 2). it was not hard to tell that this wasnt an easy score for him to sing, but he pulled through and sounded lovely on mostly everything. "finishing the hat" left something to be desired, but that was also because i felt the orchestra (who plays from above) was too soft. just my opinion.

then theres kelli, who was an absolute revelation. i was curious as to how she would play dot, since she is SO the opposite of bernadette peters. she was utter perfection. her sunday in the park with george was phenomenal. ive never heard her voice sound so full and lush and rich. she was hilarious, without being annoying. she was completely loveable. there were moments in the beginning though that reminded me of Clara in the piazza, just the way she said certain things and did certain things. she was adorable being so ansy. she grew into the hurt dot very well, however, and while she was warm, she was vulnerable. it was utter perfection. the perfect blend required for this role. then when she became marie in act two it was even more astounding. just sitting in a wheelchair while everyone else sings...she was a real person. you could see the life. i couldnt help look at her. the way she moved her hands and looked around, and was self reflective. the song to her mother, dot, was heartbreaking. and when she came back as dot, it was just the full circle. perfect performance. if she did this role on the potential broadway transfer, she would definitely be nominated for a tony. it was brillant. and did she sound ever so AMAZING!

just a beautiful production. a must see.

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Augh! Thank you so much for that review. It sounds absolutely incredible. Yay for Kelli...I loved her in Piazza, and I'm glad to hear she's so good in this.

I completely disagree with your assessment. I saw it on Tuesday--I was very excited because I've really like Kelli in Light in the Piazza but thought she seemed to not be sure what she was doing here. I think she could be good but needed better direction. I thought he seemed angry and did a lot of posturing but didn't seem to have much passion--and he peaked way too soon in "Finishing the Hat". There was also a total lack of humor in this production--even in "Putting it Together" the funny lines did not come off. The production itself--while interesting--I thought didn't come off. The lack of color in the first act, though I understood what they were trying to do, just made it look very bland. Also, the triangular set pieces seemed cumbersome and made the stage too crowded. I wondered if they spent all the rehearsal time learning to move the set around and so never had time to work on the performances. It also seemed to me the pacing was really off (there is no reason this show should be 3 hours long), and it seemed there was a real lack of energy (maybe it was an off night). Also, I've seen the show many times and really enjoyed it--this is the first time I've ever been so aware of some of the problems in the script--I spent too much of the second act thinking how Dot would have written in French in her lesson book and wondering if they were translating as they went. I came away very dissapointed, too bad because I love this show.

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I think Kelli O'Hara is fundamentally miscast as Dot, but I'm eager to be proven wrong

My sentiments exactly. And I'd like to state for the record (as if there are any doubts), that, regardless of the way his performance is received by audiences (and despite my not yet having seen him), I firmly believe Manoel Felciano is not miscast, but, rather, quite suited for this role. I'm hoping to be proven right on that account.

As far as the limitations of Reprise! I agree what Jason Alexander said in a Backstage interview:

I never would have thought of Sunday in the Park for Reprise! because their mandate is that they tend to want to look at shows that have some recognition factor for the audience and have a serviceable score with a great book, or no book with memorable songs. Sunday has great songs that came out of that score, but it's not an easy score by any stretch of the imagination. It's not a typical piece of musical theatre. And until I started to wrap my head around how to do it, I thought, "They can't afford to do it. They can't re-create the painting...

The first meeting I went to with [producing director] Jim Gardia, I said, "Can we fly the trees in and out and bring things in and out?" He said, "We don't have tracks and can only afford one fly guy." I asked, "What about the period costumes with pointillistic details?" He said, "I don't know that we can do that, either." I was like, "Why the hell are we doing this show? If you can't do it and you're not doing it as a concert, how is it going to work?"

Full interview here:

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/features/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003535825

For these reasons, despite what I'm sure are Alexander's best intentions, I have reservations about this production, and there's just NO way it'll even come close to the London production.

Still, I'm very much looking forward to seeing it next weekend.

Variety has a review of the show. I'd call it mixed to negative:

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117932647.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

Felciano is somewhat drained of color, too, though not when he sings. His haunting Tobias in last year's Gotham "Sweeney Todd" was wound tight as a spring, but his Seurat (and act-two George) are oddly soft and even diffident. Only in his soliloquies (Felciano's "Finishing the Hat," and one-man dog duet, may be close to definitive) do we see the anguished genius at war with himself.

Even less effective is Kelli O'Hara as Dot, George's mistress, whose offer of happiness must be hardest for Seurat to reject. Winsome and lilting in virginal roles, O'Hara possesses no air of either the common or the carnal, two non-negotiable traits for this character. Beatific where she needs to be tart, wispy where she should be a fury, she leaves the production with no representative of the primal life force to whom the crabbed George can react.
.........

The magic truly happens when George returns to La Grande Jatte in search of great-granddad's elusive spark of inspiration. The mismatched periaktoi panels convey the dismaying urban sprawl of Paris, with one tree on one panel a lonely remnant of the beauty that was. The modern ugliness is a perfect counterpoint to the fiery idealism of George's "Moving On" duet with the ghostly Dot (O'Hara's beatific quality at last appropriate to the moment), which they nail.

The "order ... balance ... harmony" that both Georges seek in their art aren't found everywhere in this production, but even their fitful appearances remind us of how transporting the musical theater, at its best, can be.

Updated On: 2/1/07 at 07:22 PM

It sounds to me like it's a combination - miscasting and misguided direction.

lc

I don't agree, Emcee -- at least not in regards to O'Hara- the comments that the reviewer makes seems to indicate he thinks she is just wrong for the role.

But it is true that Felciano, who hasn't handled a lot of roles this large in his career before, would definitely benefit from a very strong director - the reviewer doesn't seem to think Jason Alexander delivered on that need.

O'Hara as Dot has kind of perplexed me from the start. I'm not very familiar with her range, but I definitely don't get the vibrant, womanly spark that Dot requires from her. The reviewers complaints were exactly in line with those problems that I had envisioning her in the role.

Did you see Melissa? If you did, I'd like to know what you think. I actually thought she worked pretty well in the role --not in terms of how she looked, but in how she portrayed the character -- in all the ways that I went "wtf?" about Kelli. Obviously I haven't (and won't) see Kelli, but there just strikes me something wrong about her performance style, going on what I'm familiar with. Then again, I'm only casually familiar with the material, so I may be off my rocker on this one.

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Updated On: 2/1/07 at 08:36 PM

I didn't like Errico in the role. She's too gifted to not come up with some interesting decisions, but it was kind of like watching a smart mouse work its way through a series of complicated tubes - it was all about watching to see how she was going to get through it. It would be sort of like watching Marissa Jaret Winokur play Eliza Doolittle.

Anyway -- The LA Times review is more positive, though this reviewer typically loves just about everything. Here are the highlights:
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THEATER REVIEW
Where the dots connect
Reprise! revisits 1984's 'Sunday in the Park,' the Pointillistic musical that revealed so much of Stephen Sondheim.

By Charles McNulty, Times Staff Writer


Mind you, this presentation of "Sunday," which opened Wednesday, is very much a work in progress and can't be compared to the 2005 London staging by the Menier Chocolate Factory, which seduced critics with its incandescent design and breathtaking intimacy.

But the leads, Manoel Felciano (who received a Tony nomination for his work in the recent John Doyle revival of Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd") and Kelli O'Hara (the shooting Broadway star from "The Light in the Piazza" and "Pajama Game"), can hold their own against anyone. They need better direction than Jason Alexander can provide, but there are glorious intimations of the heights they're capable of. If anyone's planning a major revival of "Sunday," these two talents should be at the top of the casting list.

It's of course wonderfully ironic that the most moving and original portions of this modernist musical involve art more than people. "Finishing the Hat," the great ode to those talented obsessives who spend their days "mapping out the sky / finishing a hat," brings a raw emotional urgency to Sondheim's underlying theme, as does the harmonic coup de théâtre in which Seurat's painting is finally brought to life onstage at the end of Act I.

If ever there was a musical that had you happily singing the sets on the way home, it's "Sunday." The visual design is absolutely integral to the work's overall vision, which explains why this Reprise! offering comes more fully furnished than usual, with painted panels and scrims that turn the stage into a three-dimensional canvas.

Still, it's not a full-scale production, and one shouldn't go in expecting hallucinatory imagery. There are clumsy patches when the book plods and the actors seem sluggish. Also, the caricatured handling of the minor characters gets a bit sloppy, particularly in the notoriously challenging second act.

But these flaws are redeemed by the exquisiteness of O'Hara's singing and the simmering presence of Felciano, who has a lovely midrange voice even if he has trouble with the trickier numbers, such as "Color and Light," in which precision is more important than melodic flow.

O'Hara's acting, curiously, is better in the second half as Marie, George's 98-year-old grandmother, when her own identity is less visible. As Dot, the young woman who wants more from her George than he's willing to give, O'Hara shines mostly in the musical numbers.

With his burning blue eyes, Felciano brings an inward intensity to both his roles. He's every inch the driven artist, communicating in fresh, psychologically astute ways the secret ache animating aesthetic expression.

Nancy Hess lends a sharp vinegar quality to Yvonne, the haughty wife of the established painter Jules (a fine Gregory North), who has no patience for George's Pointillist nonsense, while Nancy Dussault moves between the first George's aged mother and the second George's stinging art critic with ease.

The momentum of Alexander's staging flags, but emotionally it hits its marks. For those who knew where to look, Sondheim's tender side was there all along. In "Sunday," however, he found a subject that could draw his deepest sympathy — the quest for immortal beauty.

Updated On: 2/1/07 at 08:44 PM

As a subscriber and donor to REPRISE, I would like to add my two cents regarding the Reprise producing philosophy. Reprise does 2 week productions of semi-staged productions which have each two weeks of rehearsals. Because these productions are semi-staged and have a short rehearsal span, one cannot judge them on the same level as one would judge a fully staged production.

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