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Sunday In The Park With George

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
Produced by the Shubert Organization & Emanuel Azenberg
Directed by James Lapine
Opened May 2, 1984, Booth Theatre and ran for 604 performances.

Synopsis

ACT I

Georges, a tall artist with a dark beard who wears a soft felt hat, enters a framed, but otherwise empty white space. He sits at an easel with a drawing pad and box of chalk. He turns to the audience and says, “White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge: bring order to the whole through design. Composition. Balance. Light. And harmony.” As he speaks, the scene is transformed into a grassy-green expanse of park. The sun rises as the cut-out form of a couple appears. It is the island of Grande Jatte, in ther Seine in Paris, and it is 1884. Dot, a young woman who is in love with Georges, enters in elabortae, bustled dress. Georges turns her profile towards the audience and begins to sketch her. She fidgets and complains about being uncomfortable holding her pose and asks why they had to get up so early. Georges replies that they had to catch the light and she moans. She obviously wants him to pay attention to her but he is absorbed only in his painting. When Georges erases a tree from his pad, it disappears from the stage. We realize he is creating the picture we see onstage on his pad. An old woman and her nurse appear. The old woman is unhappy her favorite tree has disappeared from the park. The nurse tells her the structure they see in the distance is the tallest structure in the world, a tower (the Eiffel Tower) which is being built for an International Exposition. Dot tells Georges he is the topic of gossip because he has been seen drawing monkeys at the zoo. She sings “Sunday in the Park with Georges,” expressing her restlessness at being a model and her discontent with their relationship. However, she acknowledges his great skill as a painter. He ignores her words, giving her orders as if she were an inanimate object. Georges observes the old lady and her nurse; several young boys on a riverbank; and Franz, a servant who stops to speak to the nurse. Georges extends his right arm and frames them into a frozen image. Jules, another artist, and his wife Yvonne enter and view Georges’s composition. They sing “No Life,” a song which is highly critical of Georges’s concept for his painting. As they finish the characters in the “painting” come back to life, throwing a Bronx cheer at Jules and Yvonne. Jules and Yvonne visit Georges in his studio. They exchange idle chatter with Georg, avoiding real comment on his work. They leave and Dot expresses her disdain for them. Georges says that Jules is a fine painter. Georges sends Dot off. She reminds him they have plans to go to the Follies. He attempts to draw the old lady’s picture and we learn that she is his mother. She says he must draw her another day and does not appear to recognize him. Georges and Dot are in his studio. Dot is musing over the fact Georges paints all night while she would rather dream. Georges is working on the huge canvas that will become “A Sunday Afternoon on the Grand Jatte.” He sings “Color and Light” lost in his world of order, design, composition, tone, form, symmetry, and balance. Dot comments that none of her clothes seem to fit her correctly and wishes that her features and body were more appealing. She longs to be in the Follies (the Folies Berègeres). Georges continues to commune with the characters in his painting, paying little attention to Dot. He becomes aware of her waiting for him only when he smells her perfume in the air. He wonders what she sees when she gazes in the mirror. She wonders what he sees in the painting. They engage each other’s attention and agree they could look at each other forever. The rare moment of connection passes as Georges refuses to go to the Follies with Dot because he must finish painting a hat. She stalks out. On another Sunday in the park, Georges sketches a boatman who stands near a black dog (represented by a cardboard cut-out). The old lady and the nurse have been joined by two girls named Celeste #1 and Celeste #2. As Georges talks with the boatman, Dot passes through the scene with Louis the Baker. The women onstage gossip about the fact Dot has obviously taken up with another man. She is pregnant (it seems wqith Georges’s child) and needs someone with an income to care for her. Jules and Yvonne appear and Yvonne joins the women in the song “Gossip.” They gossip about Georges’s affairs with other women and his peculiar behavior. The Boatman responds by calling the gossiping women Sunday hypocrites. Jules says that there is talk of including Georges’s paintings in an important group show. He and Yvonne both say “never.” Dot enters and sits down to study her reading lesson. The Boatman speaks gruffly to Louise, who is Jules and Yvonne’s little girl. Georges corrects him. Enraged, the boatman leaves. Georges proceeds to sketch the dog. Georges speaks to Dot, who has moved out of his studio. He says it has “been quiet there.” Louis appears with a treat he has baked for Dot. Georges steps away quickly. Dot and Louis leave. Georges sits down and resumes painting the dog. Georges sings “The Day Off” in the dog’s voice expressing the dog’s point of view of a Sunday in the park. The Nurse, Franz, Frieda, the boatman, two soldiers, the two girls named Celeste, Yovonne, Louis, Jules and Louis join in the song. The two girls named Celeste begin fishing. They soon attract the attention of two soldiers (one of whom is represented by a cardboard cutout). Franz, the servant and Frieda, the cook, sit on the grass. The little girl pesters them and they send her away, insisting it is Sunday and they are not working. Jules and Georges discuss Georges’s work. Jules tells Georges to forget experimentation and to spend his time meeting prospective buyers and enjoying life instead. The boatmen tells Georges artists can’t really know the people they paint. He accuses Georges of painting what is true with one eye and what suits him with the other. Dot enters and sings “Everybody Loves Louis,” explaining she has found a good man. Louis is not what she had in mind, but she is choosing him because itseems Georges has Georges, but Louis and Dot need each other. Mr. and Mrs., two American tourists, appear with pastries. They decide they hate France and only want to go home. However, they want to take a pastry chef with them. Georges sits at his easel, painting and reflecting on Dot’s decision to leave him. He sings “Finishing The Hat” realizing he can never completely give himself over to a relationship without having his art get in the way. Yet he yearns for someone who could understand his obsession. Dot comes to ask Georges for the painting he made of her powdering herself. She says she is expecting the baby in two months and plans to marry Louis. Jules and Yvonne arrive. As Georges and Jules look at Georges’s work, Yvonne and Dot, who have always had little use for one another, converse about their respective situations. Georges attempts to excite Jules about his revolutionary use of color. He has painted in red and blue, yet the eye perceives violet. His colors are mixed by the eye, not on the palette. Jules accuses him of trying to be a scientist instead of a painter. Jules says he knows Georges wants to be included in the next group show. He says, reluctantly, he will consider speaking on Georges’s behalf. Disappointed Jules has not immediately seen the merit in his work, Georges forgets Dot is waiting in the next room for him until she reappears. She tells him she and Louis are going to America. He says she will not like it there and returns to his painting. She is outraged at his lack of a caring response to the news of her plan to leave France. They sing “We Do Not Belong Together.” She implores him to ask her not to go. He cannot do that on her terms. She says she must move on. She leaves him - he stands utterly alone. Georges draws the old lady in the park. She now seems loving and warm towards him. They share sweet but contradictory memories. They each see their shared past differently. They sing “Beautiful” in which she longs for all the things that are disappearing from the landscape of her life and he tries to revise the existing world on his canvas. The soldier and Celeste #2 enter. They are joined by Mr. and Mrs. He carries a huge steamer trunk. She carries an armload of famous paintings. They are followed by Louis and Dot, who carries her baby, Marie. Dot brings Marie to Georges. She again asks for the painting he did of her. He says he has repainted it with another model. He refuses to look at his child, saying Marie now belongs to Louis. Dot starts to leave, unable to speak. Georges says he is sorry. Dot and Louis exit. Georges’s mother says she has worried about him all his life because he was “always in some other place-seeing something no one else could see.” He says he has a new woman in his life now and she says no matter who the woman in his life may be, she is always the same woman. She urges him to “connect, Georges. Connect.” Jules and Frieda appear. They are looking for a spot in the park where they can share a stolen moment of passion. The two Celestse and the two soldiers appear. Yvonne, who is searching for her daughter Louise interrupts a rendezvous between Franz and the nurse. Louise reports that she discovered her father, Jules, and Frieda together. Yvonne accuses Jules of being unfaithful with Frieda. A fight ensues between Jules, Yvonne, Franz, and Frieda. Jules fires Franz and Frieda. Everyone else gets involved in fighting in the middle of the stage. Georges and the old lady watch as the volume of the hostilties increases. Georges says “order” and the noise instantly ceases. Everyone begins to take positions on stage at his direction. He has ultimate power over them. As he says “design... tension... balance... harmony,” they create the picture we know as “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” Georges adjusts trees, cut-outs, and people on the stage/canvas to create a perfect picture. The company sings “Sunday” describing the world inside the picture. Georges rushes about making small adjustments. On the final chord, the completed canvas flies in painted on a scrim. The lights go down slowly as the image of the characters fades behind the painting with Georges standing in front.

ACT TWO

We return to the entire company on stage in the painting as we left them. They sing “It’s Hot Up Here,” a tense review of the miseries they are each experiencing frozen in position on a canvas. They leave the stage one by one, exchanging their reactions to Georges’s sudden death. The lights change and we are in a different world. It is 1984 and we have travelled to the gallery in the museum where Georges’s painting now hangs. George, a contemporary artist, enters pushing Marie, his grandmother, in a wheel chair. Dennis, George’s technical assistant, pushes in a control console. George, the artist of 1984, is an inventor-sculptor. An immense white machine rolls on which is his post-modern invention, Chromolume #7. George explains he has been commissioned to do this work in commemoration of Georges Seurat’s painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” George and Marie review the history of Georges Seurat. Then Chromolume #7 is activated. Music swells. Brilliant shafts of light appear. Colors fill the stage creating pointillist effect. The machine begins to produce images from the painting when it suddenly explodes. George apologetically explains there is an electrical problem. “No electricity, no art.” Marie and George resume their narration as the Chromolume resumes. Marie reveals she believes Seurat is her real father. She displays the small red book that Dot used to write in as proof. The Chromolume sends laser beams bursting throughout the theatre. The painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” flies in. We are at the museum reception honoring George. The guests include Bob Greenberg, the museum director; Naomi Eisen, a composer; Harriet Pawling, a patron of the arts; Billy Webster, Naomi’s friend; Charles Redmond, a visiting curator; Alex, an artist; Betty, another artist; Lee Randolph, the museum’s publicist; and Blair Daniels, an art critic. They argue among themselves about the validity of the Chromolume as art. George networks with the crowd, singing “Putting It Together.” He appears to excel at the part of being an artist that his great-grandfather did very poorly. He is an expert at the “art of making art.” As he moves from one group to another, he replaces himself with a cut-out likeness. George’s former wife Elaine appears at Marie’s side. Marie tells some of the guests she and George plan a trip to France where he will do a presentation on La Grande Jatte with the Chromolume. The art critic, Blair Daniels, begins to lecture George about his lack of originality and failure to move beyond the Chromolume concept. Blair and Marie talk about the Seurat painting. Marie informs Blair that the shape commonly thought to be a baby carriage is actually Louis’s waffle staff. Marie tells Elaine there are only two things in life that are worthwhile to leave behind: children and art. Elaine tells George she thinks Marie is tiring and will take her to the hotel. They embrace fondly. Marie, alone in front of the painting sings “Children and Art.” George joins her and she continues stressing the importance of family. Elaine wheels Marie off. George stares at the painting and repeats the old lady’s words from Act l, “connect George. Connect.” George and Dennis are on the Island of Grande Jatte. It is now covered with high rise buildings. The tree where the old lady loved to sit is all that remains of the old landscape. As they discuss the installation of the Chromolume, Dennis says that he is quitting his work with George because he wants to do something new. George says that he too needs that in his life. He wants to create art that he cares about. We learn that Marie has died. George has brought her red book with him. Dennis leaves and George begins to read the notes in the back of the book. Dot’s note’s move him to take stock of his own life. He sings “Lesson #8.” “See George remember how George used to be. Stretching his vision in every direction. See George attempting to see a connection. When all he can see is maybe a tree-the family tree.” Dot appears. Dot says George is reading her book. She speaks to him as if he were her lover, Georges. She thanks him for all he tried to teach her and asks him about his work. He tells her he has nothing to say in his work and she tells him he has to stop blocking himself and “Move On.” Suddenly Dot and George are singing together, completing the love song that they were never able to finish in Act I. She gives George of 1984 the power of his great-grandfather to explore his own vision. The old lady appears and asks George if the island is what he expected. He replies that the air is rich and full of light. The old lady leaves and George begins to recite his great-grandfather’s words, “Order. Design. Tension. Composition. Balance. and Light.” Dot helps him to read the word “harmony.” The characters from the original painting stroll in among the new buildings that represent the present. They stroll off. Dot leaves as a blank white canvas descends. George says “White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite...so many possibilities.”

Song List

Sunday in the Park with George
No Life
Color and Light
Gossip
The Day Off
Everybody Loves Louis
Finishing the Hat
We Do Not Belong Together
Beautiful
Sunday
It's Hot Up Here
Chromolume #7
Putting It Together
Children and Art
Lesson #8
Move On

Info

Original Cast included: Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Charles Kimbrough, Barbara Bryne, Dana Ivey, William Parry & Robert Westenberg

Winner of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Tony Awards Won

Best Scenic Design (Tony Straiges)
Best Lighting Design (Richard Nelson)

Related

Sunday In The Park With George MIDI Files

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Licensing Agent

Music Theatre International
421 W 54th St New York, NY 10019
212.541.4684
Fax 212.397.4684

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