Tuesday In the Theatre With Don

I know a few of you would have shot me with your crossbows had I not caught the latest production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday In The Park With George before I fled London.

I know many more of you will probably shoot me for even mentioning musical theatre here. What can I say? I walk on the wild side.

Had all the shit not gone down, I probably would have missed it (procrastination is was a potent force in my life) but Donald (a.k.a. St. Donald, a.k.a. Donald Ritchesa) being over here instantly transformed the show into the perfect way to begin to show my deep and heartfelt thanks for, well, being Donald.

Don and I have pretty much stalked Sondheim since we’ve known each other (yes, the Sonheim Remixes are still in the elementary stages – Se-se-send in the clowns) and Sunday In The Park With George has been one of the few recordings that lasted more than 30 seconds in those heady “have you heard…” nights of music sampling at 31 John… Street.

So we went… and we were astounded.


I dearly hope I never have to hold a gun to the head of Ms. Bernadette Peters but if there had to be a bloodbath then Jenna Russell would be the one walking away unscathed (though with blood on her hemline), she was fantastic. I imagine Dot is a hard character to pull off but she managed to exude all the charm and the hurt and the joy that made the role make utter sense, and in doing so lifted the production to an emotional plane not reached on the Peters/Patinkin recording.

Daniel Evans was obsessively fantastic also but he seemed to have the facial equivalent of jazz hands (jazz face?), which left him with a gaping jaw and wild eyes, even when he was playing at doting on Dot.


If the leads were sublime, we need to ante-up the superlatives for the staging. Words fail me. It opened, brilliantly, with a blank white-space and two draping drapey drapes, Onto this (once the drapes twisted into trees) were projected all the dynamic backdrops. The dynamism of the lightshow coupled with the moving floor created an extremely malleable performance space and allowed for some very witty staging. The blending of the technology, the cast and the concepts of the piece was so extremely effective that I got the shivers.


The big winner in the end (apart from the audience, of course) was Sondhiem’s show. Sam Buntrock’s production has fleshed out the obsession, class disparity and emotions of the work and placed them in a brilliantly coloured showcase. When the scrim came down on the first act and the audience were transported to salon and presented the masterwork Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte (or, as the French like to call it, Un dimanche après-midi à l'Ile de la Grande Jatte), the effect was trancendental. It is rare to see a production that can play with space and emotion so effectively.

Sondheim rocks!


Tags: review, theatre, Sondheim