Sunday in the Park with George

Rating:
Summary: genius
Review: quite cerebral and intelligent, and perhaps not for everyone, this nevertheless is an absolutely wonderful musical -- passionate, intense, intricate, witty, moving -- worth seeing.

Rating:
Summary: One of a Kind Musical
Review: I saw this years ago and have been trying to find it for over 5 years. Peters & Patinkin are a dazzling complementary duo. The music alone is worth the price of this video - but the story and interweaving of characters are an added bonus.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: SITPWG is a great musical. The critics agree Sondiem is terrific, and no one can sing his songs better then the talented Bernadette Peters. Any musical lover would enjoy this show.

Rating:
Summary: Wish it were me in that video
Review: Keep up the good work Georgie!!! :0

Rating:
Summary: A superb mixture of sound, light, color and drama!
Review: Stephen Sondheim may have been in a slump in 1982, but he had to have been pulled out of it by the Pulitzer Prize this show received, and rightly so. This show, concerning the life of Georges Seurat, chromoluminarist/painter of "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," as well as a modern day artist who has lost his way in the world of art, is a brilliant blend of life and art, actually staged to recreate "La Grande Jatte" with sparkling results. The in-depth text and top-notch performances brought forth by Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters are underscored by Sondheim's perfect music, which sets the musical on edge and transports you to a world of "color and light." A must for musical fans around the world!

Rating:
Summary: Sondheim at his best
Review: This is a must see for any one who has the CD, loves Sondheim, or just loves the musical theater. On the CD there are some lyrics that just dont make sense. Even some songs seem out of place. But buying this DVD will clear them all up. I agree with some of the reviewers that Mandy Patinkin overacts. His hand movements are a bit too drastic sometimes. In the Audio Commentary he basically dominates the conversation. But his vocals and his deliverance are great. Bernadette Peters is most likely the greatest actress alive. In the second act, when she becomes marie, she plays the role to perfection. The supporting cast is great as well. The funniest line (and a catchphrase of mine), is when the boatman is supposed to be giving directions to the Americans who think He cannot understand english. "Why dont you just walk into the water until your lungs fill up and you die". LOL. He should have won a Tony for that. This whole show should have won a Tony, Not "La Cage Aux Follies". Get this and enjoy it as much as I did. You will not be dissapointed.

Rating:
Summary: A Rare Gem
Review: I will forever be in the dark as to why anyone would dislike this piece of theater. So many times you hear about how "cerebral" and "inaccesible" Sondheim shows are. Is it so hard for people to think and feel at the same time? The beauty of this piece is that it forces the audience to think about their relationship with art (either as an artist or a patron) and at the same time allows you to care for the characters deeply. Alright, so you have to listen to it a few times before you really begin to "get it." This work allows you to witness an artist (considered a genius by many) who devotes himself competely to his work only to realize that he must do it at the expense of all of his other relationships. From "Beautiful," during which George tries but realizes it's too late to connect with his aging mother, to "We Do Not Belong Together," when the love of his life tells him that she simply cannot be #2 anymore, I am not sure how anyone can watch these amazing moments and NOT be moved.

The score is haunting and the acting (except for a few moments that don't quite work from Mr. Patinkin) is astonishing. It is a very risky choice having an opening number during which the soloist hardly moves, but Bernadette Peters draws you in from the start...brilliant acting. Perhaps the voices are not as "perfect" in the DVD as they are on the original soundtrack, but give me actors who are willing to sacrifice perfect vocal delivery for emotional content any day. This production is one of my favorites and is essential for anyone interested in the artistic process.

Rating:
Summary: Simply Sublime
Review: I can't watch this DVD without crying. The story is incredibly compelling - I would think even more so to someone who is passionate about creativity and who loves art, musical theatre and exceptional writing.

This Pulitzer Prize winning play is a love story on many different levels.

It is about love for art, love for the product one is creating, love for the moment.

It is about making wrongs right, about coming full circle.

It is about the choices we make and the long lasting and far reaching ramifications of those choices.

Like someone said in an earlier review, this is not anything like "Oklahoma!"

Bernadette Peters is incredible, Mandy Patinkin is passionate - at some points his face takes on such an enraptured quality I forget he ISN'T 19th Century George. I also enjoyed seeing the actor who played "Jim" on "Murphy Brown" as Jules, haughty art critic.

Secondly, the commentary provided by James Lapine (writer, director), Stephen Sondheim, (music and lyrics) and Peters and Patinkin is like getting an inside peek at the process they went through to bring this play to the stage.

I found myself yelling at Sondheim one time, though - as he interrupted right as Peters asked Lapine an especially wonderful question about Barbara Bryne's portrayal of George's mother and Sondheim spoke right over her.

I literally screamed at the TV set.

I couldn't help myself - I played the role in a local production and said to the Director "James Lapine must have an interesting relationship with his mother, he writes such interesting mother roles."

This is a DVD you should watch over and over and over to capture the many nuances and subtleties. And if you are a passionate artist, be sure to have Kleenex handy. You will recognize yourself in the story.



Rating:
Summary: So many things to love!
Review: As someone who did not see the original production of SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, I am more grateful for this film of the stage play than I can possibly express. Although both Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin have both enjoyed fine careers in film and television in addition to their stage work, their best work has been on stage, and by the nature of the medium, it has been more or less lost to us. This performance captures them doing what they do best. It is ironic that with the semi-rebirth of the film musical in recent years, there has been no attempt to do so with Patinkin, the premiere musical stage performer of the past thirty years. Here he is a marvel, crafting songs with vocals stylings of an inconceivable range.

Sondheim's score is a thing of glory. Unlike many previous composers, Sondheim was concerned with making each song an organic part of the work as a whole. They don't stand alone, but absolutely require their setting in the rest of the musical. It is as if Sondheim wanted to make it impossible for any of them to be excerpted. Yet, each one is utterly remarkable, stamped with the highest possible craft and talent. What sets Sondheim's art apart from his fellow composers is the brilliance of his arrangements. He clearly has invested as much effort in arranging the music as he has in crafting the lyrics and writing the initial music. The arrangements are so hypnotic that at times I actually had to listen twice to a couple of musical numbers because I realized that I had failed to listen to the lyrics. The effect of the brilliant songs, the extraordinary performances, and the astonishing arrangements is absolutely breathtaking.

The cast is beyond reproach, with numerous stellar performances beyond those by Patinkin and Peters. Barbara Byrne, Dana Ivey, Charles Kimbrough, and many others perform their roles to perfection. Interestingly, shortly after the run of the musical was over, two of the cast members went on to major television stardom: Charles Kimbrough stood out as Jim Dial in MURPHY BROWN while Brent Spiner created one of the most beloved characters in television history as Data in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.

In general, I have a low opinion of the stage musical. Most of them are more glitter and surface than substance, with superficially appealing music. SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, however, is one of the grand exceptions. The word "genius" is thrown around far too often, but it can be applied here with no impropriety.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing Mandy & Beautiful Bernadette
Review: Georges Seurat was totally insane by the age of 32. Knowing that helps Stephen Sondheim's genius show through. Sunday in the Park with George is an amazing show about the life of this manic artist, and the fictional personalities of the figures in his painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte". The first Act is completely devoted to a set of Sundays spanning 2 years of Seurat's life and the end of his relationship with a long-time lover. The dramatic and touching songs make you feel for this hard-nosed painter yet comical points shine through. The second act takes place 100 years later in 1984 with the Great-grandson of Georges (also played by Mandy Patinkin) doing a tribute to the painting that brought his relative so much posthumous fame. Like other Sondheim shows it is at times long-winded, but altogether entirely enjoyable. Mandy and Mrs. Peters' voice have so much emotion and power that, with the correct sound system, you are carried to the brink of pure delight and insanity by their performances. With Commentary from the actors and producers this is an essential for one who collects musicals.