Review: Wistful ‘Sunday In the Park’ takes stage in San Jose

There is an icy chill that surrounds the 19th-century French pointillist painter George Seurat. He carries a deeper relationship with an inanimate piece of fabric than a human, no matter how many want to connect to him and his colorful mind. Whereas humans may have limitations, that is not the case for his artistry.

He expresses his passion for art beautifully; “White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So many possibilities.”

There are lots of succulent moments in the San Jose Playhouse production of the 1985 Pulitzer-prize winning musical “Sunday in the Park with George,” a milestone collaboration between book writer James Lapine and composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, directed keenly by Scott Evan Guggenheim. The production suffers from some inconsistency in the transitions and pacing that creates more slack than necessary, especially a first act that finally found its footing halfway through. Despite these challenges, in addition to microphone issues that interrupted the show I saw much too frequently, there are many terrific vocal performances of a score that is replete with insightful wisdom.

It is 1884 and George (Stephen Guggenheim) is hard at work on his new piece, “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” while his mistress Dot (Julia Wade) participates as his model on an early Sunday, much to her consternation. George started the work at the young age of 25, and his meticulous obsession with the work lasted the better part of two years.

These early scenes provide luscious insight into the lucid yet aloof, orotund mind of George. He jabs each dot feverishly into the painting, as other parkgoers begin to arrive. Some folks who don’t make it into the painting include a rude group who end up inspiring his first work, “Bathers at Asnières.”

As the story moves forward, more life is breathed into the painting as its inhabitants appear. The chaos of the subjects, who engage in breakups, fights and infidelity, is harnessed delightfully by the man who wields the brush, an artist who took every color onto the tips of his bristles to craft a harmonic masterpiece.

The second act is an entirely different piece, moving forward 100 years. George’s great-grandson, also named George (also played by Stephen Guggenheim), is displaying his newest chromolume, inspired by his great-grandfather’s painting. Despite the structural strengths of the narrative in the first act, the second cascades on a path of illumination with some of the most splendid songs and wisdom the show offers.

Julia Wade makes no haste as Dot in Act 1, and Marie in Act 2. Her longing for a George that will never be what she needs him to be is soul-crushing. Wade’s poignant delivery in the beauteous simplicity of a song such as “Children and Art” in Act 2 is made all the more mournful when delivered in the shadow of Sondheim mere days before the first anniversary of his passing.

Guggenheim’s delivery as both a tortured artist and lonely pioneer covers a nice range of emotions, unlocking much of what is the universal truth about art and the intoxicating nature of committing a life to illuminate one’s surroundings. Songs such as the solo “Finishing the Hat,” and the duet “Color and Light,” with Wade, reveals why his passion for art pushes him further into insouciance with others.

The strength of the production vocally, aside from plenty of individual voices, is the collection of choral work that highlights the intricacies of a Sondheim composition. And while there is no quibble with the collection of voices, the minimal to no diversity among the cast is a bit jarring, given today’s artistic commitment to more equitability on American stages. Despite that, the choral numbers among the company are some of the show’s highlights.

More apotheosis exists on the technical spectrum. Spacing two acts over 100 years makes for some interesting costume choices, and those designed by Julie Engelbrecht are quite stellar. In addition, a widely colorful palette of projections that live on a massive upstage screen fill in many of the show’s blanks, its own white canvas that presents literal, infinite possibilities.

There’s a certain passivity to the piece that feels metaphoric. So much of the show is an observation, people living their lives become subjects for an artist. The dimensions of these characters can be stunted and limiting. And there is sad poetry in the sense that Dot yearns for a fully present George, a desire that may never come to fruition.

Great art is immortalized in a painting. Yet, sadly, affairs of the heart can sometimes live just outside the canvas.

David John Chávez is chair of the American Theatre Critics Association and served as a juror for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Twitter: @davidjchavez.