Sunday in the park with GeorgeCurrently playing in a series limited to the Hudson Theater in New York with Jake Gyllenhaal, is perfectly exempt from politics – a two -hour respite against contemporary anxieties, holidays on the banks of the Seine, bathed in sunlight and in glorious harmony. And yet, without ever collapsing, he makes one of the most convincing cases imaginable for the power of artists, and how deeply their work is integrated into a well -ordered society. Art shows us, as George de Gyllenhaal demonstrates this to his mother in one of the most moving songs of the first act, how life can be beautiful.
But rather than simply celebrating the fruits of creative work, Sunday in the park is a testimony to process to make art; A substantial overview inside the mind of someone who fights with his own genius. When the show – with music and words by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s book – was designed in 1984, he was interpreted as one of Sondheim’s most personal expressions, on the heels of his critical and financial bomb, Merrily, we drive. George, the hero of the show, is obsessed with his paintings, to the detriment of all the rest of his life. But as the show takes place, going from 19th century France to Chicago from the 80s, he explores reasoning behind his resolute fixation, and how the role of George as observer allows everyone to see the world also differently.
It is largely because this renewal, produced by Sarna Lapine (the niece of James Lapine), is so magnificent and so rich emotionally, anchored by performances of Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford as the mistress of George and model of the artist, dot. The show is based on the Pointillist masterpiece of Georges Souat in 1884, “A Sunday afternoon on the island of the Grande Jatte“” And George is a loose version of Seurat, with his largely fictitious life. While sketching studies on dowry, which growls on the discomfort, warmth and fierce focus of George on his work, the projections of his sketches appear on a backdrop on stage, made so that the public is witness in real time. During all this time, George recounts his reflection process: the challenge of bringing order and harmony to a virgin canvas.
Gyllenhaal’s gifts as an actor are well documented now, so it is his vocal talents that could surprise (observe, if you have not already done so, the short video of Cary Fukunaga of Gyllenhaal singing George “Finishing The Hat” at Hudson). His voice is rich, measured and emphatic. But it is the action behind it that really cuts deeply, in a remarkable fusion of technical accomplishment and intense absorption in a role. When he sings to map a sky, feeling voices outside but being completely lost in the home, “dizzying the height” to fall on earth, you are tempted, as a dowry, to forgive him.
Ashford, who won a Tony for the 2014 renewal of comedy Daffy You can’t take it with youis George’s perfect paper as a point: sassy, practical and infinitely charming. But she also transmits the exquisite pain to love someone so inaccessible, and her chemistry with Gyllenhaal is pure. Towards the end of the first act, when George directs the many elements and characters to meet in a synergy of music and visuals, he places Dot at the front of “painting”, as if to keep it near. But the support cast, too, is skilful to bring comic relief and to balance the harmony of the show: Robert Sean Leonard as Jules, an accomplished artist; Penny Fuller as the mother of George, lost in nostalgia; Phillip Boykin as a boat boat and obstruction. The peripheral characters of their nature are ephemeral archetypes, included to contrast with the more textured representations of George and Dot.
The second act of Sunday in the parkWho jumps in 1984 – with Gyllenhaal playing another artist named George and Ashford his grandmother, Marie, Dot’s daughter – often seemed to shake after the perfection of the first act, but Lapine manages to make the two reference rooms by emphasizing the way in which George’s art is linked to his grandfather. Just as the Seurat used pointillism and the science of light to create new colors and impressions, 1984 George launched a luminous installation called “Chromolume” at the Art Institute in Chicago. The work, created by the picturesque designer Beowulf Boritt, is looming above the public in a dazzling demonstration of illuminations, weaving and corrugated general costs. Ashford, playing transparently to play a 90-year-old southern grandmother, states the creative isolation and frustration of George in “Children and Art”, a song addressed to his mother in the painting. The cracks in her voice and the deliberate weakness of the voice of Mary make it one of the most moving numbers of the show.
The frustrations of Modern George are different but rooted in the same fears-unlike his great-grandfather, he must collect funds for his dear and technologically advanced works and respond to the criticisms he inevitably receives. But in the song “Move on”, it becomes clear that the two are one and the same thing, striving to make art that matters and doing something new. The resolution of the show has just realized that the simple fact of doing the work is sufficient – everything else is out of the hands of an artist. This production, so skillfully directed, underlines both the value of the struggle and the timelessness of great art. It is indeed powerful to have the experience, even briefly, to see the world through the eyes of a visionary.
