Another Sunday

London cast recording shows that reinterpretation can work

ntil this year, Sunday in t/ie Park with George had the distinction of being the only Stephen Sondheim musical to play in New \brk without having more than one recording of its score. Even Sondheim's two unsuccessful 1960s musicals, Do I Hear a Walts? and Anyone Can Whistle, have each been recorded twice (during the 1990s, JAY/TER recorded a third \Vhisde album, which has not been released). Most Sondheim fans never minded the lack of another Sunday recording, however. The 1984 original cast recording starred two preeminent interpreters of Sondheim's work, Mandy Patinkin and Bcrnadette Peters (who reprised their roles in a cable TV production ultimately preserved on VI1S and DVD), and record producer Thomas Z. Shepard intelligently reconeeived the musical in overseeing the cast album recording. The first Sondheim east album of the CD age, it blended dialogue and song and added instrumentation to create an aural equivalent to Georges Scurat's masterpiece being completed onstage. The album was a satisfying entertainment on its own; you didn't need to have seen Sunday on Broadway to enjoy the recording. Sam Buntrock's 2006 minimalist production of Sunday triumphed in a small setting with an equally small orchestra. Tommy Krasker's recent cast album (PS Classics) preserves the strengths of that production. This CD successfully brings a 20th-century work about the creation of a 19thcentury masterpiece into a new century. Daniel Evans, as George, is convincing and captures the poignancy of both the French artist, who must shut out the world in order to create, and his American descendant, who can only begin to work once he opens himself up. Evans remains true to his character in each act. While portraying the two dogs in "The Day Off" sequence (giving one a Scottish brogue), his George comes across like a dedicated artist losing himself in his work and trying to distract himself from his romance \\ith Dot. Patinkin, performing the song on Broadway, sometimes lapsed into shtick. And in the lengthy "Putting It Together," Evans compellingly switches between singing to other characters and delivering internal monologues. Jenna Russell is a more than worthy successor to Peters as Dot and Marie. Adopting a Cockney accent for Dot. she has only to speak her first
REVIEW BY ANDREW MILNER

>Y IN THE PARK

PHOTO COURTESY PS CLASSICS

line in the opening number to define her status and her relationship to George. In her delivery of "Everybody^oves Louis," she's obviously not only trying to convince George of her new love affair. she's vainly trying to convince herself as well. Her Marie is winning in singing "Children and Art" and speaking her dialogue in "Putting It Together." The supporting cast is uniformly excellent. Gay Soper is first-rate as Blair Daniels and Seurat's mother, the Old Lady. Krasker wisely includes her dialogue with Evans before "Beautiful," which establishes their relationship as a precursor to George and Marie's in Act II. Alasdair Harvey is strong as the Boatman in Act I and the modern-day George's assistant Dennis. The 1984 cast album included an augmented string section for the romantic songs, expanding it further for the "Sunday" choruses ending each act. It's a testament to music director Caroline Humphris and orehestrator Jason Carr that this album conveys the depth of Sondheim's score with only five musicians (with a few added to sweeten the recording). The "Sunday" chornse* here are as fulfilling as on the original reconizae. The only unsatisfying moments for listencx* on the American side of the Atlantic are seicn of the accents in particular, Joanne Red* (Harriet Pawling), Mark McKerracher'Redmond) and Steven Kynman's (Lee Randal With accents, as with acting, a little goes a way; the broadness of the accents will likeK tr* on American ears. The bonus track, "The One on the Lett. longer version of the brief scene in "The D sequence betw-een the Soldier (Christopher Colley) and the two Celestes (Sarah Frendti and Kaisa Hammarlund) cut during Sundm original workshop period. If not an essenni number, it does demonstrate that the ; Soldier is a cousin of such other Sondhcsn acters as Miles Gloriosus and Count C Magnus. This new Sunday album may never i original, but it shows that this Pulitasr 1 ning musical is open to reinterpreuiiffl recording has an intimacy that tener to pay attention to the central Arthur Laurents said of the 19S4 duction, "It says you must be shown 1 at art. But what about looking at | Krasker and Humphris have found; achieve this. fisn|
ANDREW MILNER reviews books amt Philadelphia City Paper.

46 The Sondheim Review