Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford, who both earned raves for their portrayals, will return to their roles, and will mark the second major Broadway revival of Sondheim and Lapine's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical.
Sondheim and Lapine's masterpiece follows painter Georges Seurat (Jake Gyllenhaal) in the months leading up to the completion of his most famous painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Consumed by his need to "finish the hat," Seurat alienates the French bourgeoisie, spurns his fellow artists, and neglects his lover Dot (Annaleigh Ashford), not realizing that his actions will reverberate over the next 100 years.
Sunday in the Park with George is produced on Broadway by Adam Speers for Ambassador Theatre Group, New York City Center, Jeanine Tesori, and Riva Marker.
Lapine's overall approach - assuming that is what I am describing here - is a perfectly justifiable and resonant way into this show and, I'd wager, a closer match for where Lapine (her uncle) and Sondheim are now with regard to their midlife show. The downside, though, of the projection of art as personality-killing necessity is that you don't see a lot of possibility for life lived the other way - you know, the functional one with the love, art and kids - and the diminished potential of the road not traveled has the impact of cutting the tension in the piece and compromising one of its most perpetually engaging qualities.
He is a thorny soul, a man neither happy nor particularly kind, and not someone you'd be likely to befriend. But when the 19th-century French painter Georges Seurat, reincarnated in the solitary flesh by a laser-focused Jake Gyllenhaal, demands that you look at the world as he does, it's impossible not to fall in love. Or something deeper than love - closer to religious gratitude - is the sentiment you may experience in the finale that concludes the first act of the marvelous revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 'Sunday in the Park With George,' which opened on Thursday night at the newly restored Hudson Theater.
1983 | Off-Broadway |
Playwrights Horizons Workshop Off-Broadway |
1984 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
1986 | Regional (US) |
Long Beach Revival Regional (US) |
1990 | West End |
London Revival West End |
1994 | Broadway |
Reunion Concert Broadway |
1997 | Regional (US) |
Regional Revival Regional (US) |
2002 | Regional (US) |
Sondheim Festival Production Regional (US) |
2004 | Regional (US) |
Regional Concert Regional (US) |
2005 | London Fringe |
London Revival London Fringe |
2006 | West End |
West End Transfer West End |
2007 | Los Angeles |
Reprise! Concert Los Angeles |
2008 | Broadway |
Roundabout Revival Broadway |
2014 | Arlington, VA (Regional) |
Signature Theatre Production Arlington, VA (Regional) |
2016 | New York |
New York City Center Concert Gala New York |
2017 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
2020 | London |
2020 West End Revival London |
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