I am not one of this Pulitzer Prize-winning musical's many admirers. I like its ideas and was knocked out by the Act One curtain tableau (on Broadway) which reproduces George Seurat's famous painting, "A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte."
Some of Stephen Sondheim's repetitious score is lovely, and there are both showy arias and stunning visual effects in this pedantic, pretentious show. But almost all the interesting action ends after the Act 2 opening's repetition of the cast's making the painting onstage; and the rest is mostly a disorganized lecture/demonstration of not entirely consistent theories about the making of art with some footnotes about the events of Act One.
Shaw Festival has a world-class ensemble of versatile actors who can sing and dance, as well as superb theater-technicians, and musicians, so there is nothing wrong with the talent assembled for this revival. But there is one serious shortcoming: the stage of the Royal George Theatre is too small for this work. Even the program photographs reveal the disparity between pictures of the original painting, the London and New York productions, and this one, in which the people trying to recreate the painting are cramped together so tightly that their posed gathering does not resemble the Seurat original. The important spaces between the people and trees and background which are seen in the other photos don't exist here, and so, neither does the stunning effect of the Act 1 finale.
I am a longtime admirer of Steven Sutcliffe who plays the title role. He was an outstanding young actor in many varied contemporary and classic non-musical dramas at Ontario's Shaw Festival and Stratford Festival, and later I was amazed to discover his beautiful voice in the original production of Ragtime and thereafter. George in this play is a character in different times and settings and sometimes more a personified concept than a person, but, singing and acting the role ideally, Sutcliffe gives George a compelling identity that I'm not sure the script does.
Other ensemble major talents like Sharry Flett, Kyle Blair, Jay Turvey, Neil Barclay, Julie Martell and Patty Jamieson lend luster to this performance; and the only problem with music director Paul Sportelli and his musicians is that there are only 12 of them.
Alan Brodie's lighting involves a number of complex changes and projections and looks wonderful. My memory might be faulty, but I seem to recall original stage designs that suggested Seurat's pointillism more than these do. And even if original writer/director Lapine weren't more interested in blocked movement than choreography, the Royal George Theatre's cluttered stage would have defeated much choreographic effort.
