Sunday in the Park with George (1984 Original Broadway Cast)
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Free Music Notes for Sunday in the Park with George (1984 Original Broadway Cast)
Free Music Review: For Artists Only
Hit: 5 Stars
I once was associated with a community theater production of "Sunday In The Park With George," my favorite musical. Unlike most community theaters, this one was well-funded, with money to burn, and burn money they did. In attempting to replicate the production values of the original Broadway show, their comprehensive carbon copy was the most expensive play they had ever put on in their 150 year history. It was DOA, and a flop. Because copying isn't art. Because they could sing it, but they couldn't hear it. What makes "Sunday In The Park" so thrilling is that it soars on songs that plumb (with great good humor and compassion), the demands that art makes on artists. As the title of this review, taken from the Talking Heads, suggests, you either get it, or you don't. Most don't. Or as George sings, "They have never understood / And no reason that they should / But if anybody could. . ."Free Music Review: Sunday in the Park with George is Outstanding
Hit: 5 Stars
I saw this show on Broadway in 1984 and this recording brings back the thrill of that experience. Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters are at the top of there game. This is a magical recording.Free Music Review: Amazing!
Hit: 5 Stars
One of the best scores written by Stephen Sondheim! So amazing! You will enjoy it very much!Free Music Review: Great Score...Middling Show
Hit: 4 Stars
This remastered edition of the OBC of "Sunday in the Park with George" is pristine and sonically beautiful. It captures a rapturous performance by Bernadette Peters, some of Steven Sondheim's finest moments and the usual from Mandy Patinkin: gorgeous renditions of some plaintive songs mixed with over-the-top, gimmicky hijinx that tax the listener and overwhelm the material. "Sunday..." has always been a puzzlement. Despite some weak songs in the first act ("Gossip", "No Light", "The Day Off") it still has resonence and soaring melodic and comedic moments. "Everybody Loves Louis" is a highlight for Peters and she shows off her comedic elan to its best effect. She also injects "We Do Not Belong Together" with a searing intensity that communicates both her wrath and deep hurt at the loss of George. "Finishing the Hat" is Patinkin's moment to shine. No one has ever performed the piece better and it is one of Sondheim's greatest achievements as well as Patinkin's. All of this leads to a moment of musical theater history, the soaring denoument to Act I, "Sunday". This song builds in beauty and surging power to a climax that is emotionally overwhelming and deservedly so.
Act II has always been castigated for being either unnecessary or disjointed. It is true that the book rather clumsily tries to connect the past and the present, but Sondheim still comes up with some classics. "It's Hot Up Here" is an odd comical number that works on its premise: characters in Seurat's painting sing a litany of complaints about being immortalized in a painting. The conceit works perfectly. "Putting It Together" has rightly become a standard because it nails the dichotomy of art and commerce in precise, hilarious asides. The "Chromolume #7" section is dated and belabored, but what follows is a series of songs that build upon character and theme quite efficiently. Peters' gentle "Children and Art" is a wise lullaby that she performs exquisitely, and Patinkin's "Lesson #8" is the breakthrough his character needs. His subdued rendition is sincere, underplayed and quite welcome. Both performers collaborate beautifully together in the joyous "Move On", which also provides the listener with the emotional release needed to make the piece come together. Finally, The reprise of "Sunday" is more mournful and pensive than when first heard, a precise and moving end to a problematic musical.
Peters manages to assert herself here as a Broadway force to be reckoned with, as she would repeatedly prove to be in the years to come. Unfortunately, Patinkin also manages to assert himself as one of the most eccentric and inconsistent Broadway performers around. His "The Day Off", in which he portrays and imitates a dog, is an ordeal to listen to. On other occassions, his dour, one-note portrayal makes George seem like an insufferable narcissist. Maybe that was the authors' intent, but it sure doesn't make for an entertaining listen.
"Sunday in the Park..." is worth the time of anyone interested in musical theater, and the CD does not suffer from the scripting lapses that plagued the show. If only someone could have given Patinkin a sedative or two he might have grated less and relied more on his talent than his show-offmanship.
Free Music Review: Top Heavy Sondheim
Hit: 4 Stars
"Sunday" was the first of Sondheim's attempts to trip himself up by creating an amazing first act out of town then challenging himself to paint his way out of the corner he'd trapped himself in. (Kelsey Grammer was George at La Jolla when it was a one-act.) Sondheim didn't completely succeed here; he came closer with "Into the Woods". The second act George is no match for the first, so neither is the musical's. I saw it twice, with one of the leads each time but their replacements in the other role; and an ideal production would have been the replacements playing the second act. Mandy P. had too much weight for the second George and Bernadette P. was a Carol Burnett sketch as the old lady. Her voice is too raw for the difficult material, though she is always very, very game.
The remaster sounds brilliant. The bonus material is not very interesting. Hearing a cut of Grammer would have been.
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