The Musical
Sunday in the Park with George by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim
Brief History
original sketch from James Lapine. overlaid on the painting in his studio, marking relationships between characters
With a background in photography and graphic design, James Lapine (left) had only worked on one musical (March of the Falsettos) before meeting Stephen Sondheim (right) in 1982. Sondheim was coming right off of the "failure" that was Merrily We Roll Along, closing after 16 performances. The two began collaborating and creating Sunday, a fictionalized telling of the life of painter Georges Seurat, Lapine as director/writer and Sondheim as composer/lyricist
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The show, just the first act at this time, premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in July of 1983 and was quickly picked up for the upcoming Broadway season. Previews began April 2, 1984 and the show opened on May 2, 1984. Edits and rewrites of the second act, primarily, were being made all the way up until the end of April.
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Sunday was nominated for ten Tony Awards including Best Musical, but did not win any. The show was awarded New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Sunday is one of only ten musicals to win a Pulitzer. The musical has had several notable revivals including two productions in London and a Broadway revival in 2017 with Annaleigh Ashford as Dot and Jake Gyllenhaal as George. The musical continues to be produced all over the world (obviously :) and stands as a hallmark of Lapine, Sondheim, and musical theatre.
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If you would like to know more about the creation and process of the musical, I highly recommend reading Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George, the book James Lapine wrote in 2021 about the show. It is such a fascinating and stunning look into the world of the show. Here is an interview from the book tour.
On his book tour, James Lapine was in conversation with Richard Rand at the Getty Museum in California. Start here at minute mark 33:30 to hear the Lapine, Rand, and Sondheim discuss the musical.
Act 1: France and the socio-political and artistic scene of the late 1880s
The Franco-Prussian War
The building of the Eiffel Tower from 1887 to 1889
Following the end of the French Revolution in 1799, Napoleon crowned himself emperor, beginning a time period that is categorized by conquest and conflict, namely the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon ruled until his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Even with Napoleon off of the thrown, conflict is far from over. The next sixty years bring challenges to the government/monarchy, an attempt at a republic, and the extremely disastrous Franco-Prussian War. The end of this war marked the end of France's domination over Europe and the start of the Third Republic, which would last well into the 1900s.
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While French history in the 19th century is quite complicated, the 1880s provided a time of relative peace and decent growth, both industrially and artistically. By the point in history when Seurat was creating his masterpiece, France has securely entered the Belle Epoque or "beautiful epoch". This is a time when the upper classes of France are enjoying the outcomes of the Second Industrial Revolution (lasting from 1870 is to 1914), technological and scientific advances, as well as militaristic peace. The arts flourished and many French artistic legacies, like the can-can, became a part of French society. The Eiffel Tower also began being built and was exhibited in 1889 at the Exposition Universelle. This is the time period in which the first act is set (between 1884 and 1886).
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To read more about the artistic time period during which Seurat was painting, refer to the "The Painting" tab of this site.
Act 2: Contemporary Art and the art scene of the 1980s
Original sketch of the Chromolume
Unlike Georges Seurat and the Neo-Impressionists, Act 2 George and his work don't fall into a neat artistic era. By the mid-1900s, art has (literally and figuratively) abstracted and splintered into many, many styles and forms. However, if I were to pick where to categorize the Chromolumes, I would land close to Postmodernism. A reaction to the utopian views of the Modernists, the Postmodernists embraced a lack of a singular definition and type of art making. They practiced art with skepticism and philosophical critique, often connecting with intermedia, technological, and installation art.
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Following the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, the economies' of cities in the United States were booming. This meant that places like New York City, namely, but also Chicago (the setting of the second act) were able to fund cultural institutions like museums and theaters. However, the wage disparity was increasing and AIDS was emerging, causing a dissonance between the institution's wealth and the artists themselves. Art at this time often referenced past or current political or social events and reflected the amalgamation of cultures in large cities in the United States.
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