By Kyle A. Thomas
[PHOTO CAPTION: George (Kevin Webb) sketches Dot (Missy Wise Vanderzee) while the ensemble looks on. Photo credit: Evan Hanover.]
In 1888, Georges Seurat returned to his famous painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, to paint a border around the huge work utilizing his pointillist technique. The border, according to art historians, ensures a proper framing of his lakeside scene and separates his aesthetic effort from the contexts of wherever the painting might be hung. Though one of his last additions to the artwork, Seurat considered space a vital component when viewing A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.
If only Kokandy Productions’ creative team behind Sunday in the Park with George (music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine) had shared Seurat’s concern for the relationship between space and viewership, the artistry on display in their staging of the Tony Award winning musical would reach levels worthy of theatrical mastery. Staged in the studio of Chopin Theatre, the cramped, obstructed, and acoustically unbalanced performance proved an unfortunate framing for the incredible talents of the actors and musicians in one of Sondheim’s most beloved musicals. Craning necks and straining ears frustrate the delicate interpersonal intimacy the actors deliver on stage. In the end, one is left with a certain feeling that the expertly crafted square peg that is Sunday in the Park with George was never going to fit into the well-intentioned round hole envisioned by Kokandy’s production team.
A fictionalized story about Seurat’s creative process for his painting and its later influence, Sunday in the Park with George is Sondheim’s tour de force composition in the style of [neo]impressionism for musical theatre. The pointillist precision of Seurat’s hand is transformed into sonic counterpoint in Sondheim’s score, brilliantly performed by the cast and orchestra under Nick Sula’s music direction, despite the auditory imbalance. Director and choreographer, Derek Van Barham, further extends an exacting artistic hand by staging George (Kevin Webb) as the singularly staccato persona oscillating in contrast and collaboration with the ensemble’s collectively timed movements throughout the space. The push-and-pull motif of the show is brilliantly captured in intimate microcosm between Webb and Missy Wise Vanderzee, who portrays George’s partner Dot in the first act. Together, Webb and Vanderzee move around one another in fits and starts that undergird their fragile but ever-present connection, leaving audiences with a forlorn sense of “what if” floating like fog around even their most intimate moments.
Keeping with their point-and-counterpoint, Sondheim and Lapine flip the second act from the personalities captured in the painting to the individuals who make up a world of postmodern art criticism in 1983. The grand unveiling of his work entitled Chromolume #7, a sound and light variation on A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, provides the impetus for George (Seurat’s supposed great-grandson) and the ensemble to express that “art isn’t easy.” The kitschy design of Chromolume #7 sits directly across from Seurat’s monumental painting—a juxtaposition that fuels George’s back-and-forth between seeing the Parisian setting of La Grande Jatte through the artistic lenses of both the 19th- and 20th-centuries, viewing it through the eyes of his ancestor but also for himself. But even that viewpoint is undercut by the clear reality that Webb is staring at two support pillars in the space sitting directly in front of each work of art, blocking his view whichever way he turns.
In the end, the performances of the actors carry us beyond the challenges of the space. Sondheim wrote that “art isn’t easy” while also ensuring that his vocal score would prove difficult to even the most veteran singer. Every voice in the show, just like every figure in the painting, contributes to the emotionally charged atmosphere of the work. But the question of attending Sunday in the Park with George as presented by Kokandy Productions teeters on whether artistic effort can achieve aesthetic excellence within the constraints of its framing. And with ticket prices that exceed fifty dollars for general admission, it is the perspective of this reviewer to take into consideration Sondheim’s exhortation about making art vis-à-vis the cost of viewing that art in its most affective contexts.
Sunday in the Park with George is reservedly recommended. Those who are avowed fans of Stephen Sondheim and/or Kokandy Productions will certainly enjoy the show. But, if this is your first experience with the musical, it is advised that you wait to see it in a more appropriate space. Performances run through November 1st with curtain times on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7 pm, and Sundays at 5 pm. Ticket prices range from $55.20 for general admission, $65.87 for reserved seating, with students and seniors at $44.52. Tickets can be purchased at kokandyproductions.com.