Review: Sunday in the Park With George Gets a Breathtaking West Coast Revival

Sunday in the Park With George is the first mainstage production of Pasadena Playhouse's six-month festival celebrating Stephen Sondheim, and it's a loving tribute to the composer and lyricist who died in 2021. Sondheim Celebration, as the festival is called, was actually conceived by producing artistic director Danny Feldman before Sondheim's death, and Sondheim himself signed off on the idea.

If this Sunday feels familiar to those who saw the most recent Broadway revival in 2017, it is because it has the same director — Sarna Lapine, niece of James Lapine, who wrote the book of the musical and directed the original — and most of the same design team. But with an almost entirely new cast, the performances are fresh. The tableau looks the same from a distance, with the actors wearing Clint Ramos's vibrant costumes, but look at the actors who make it up, like the dots on one of George Seurat's paintings, and you'll see something new.

The 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical is inspired by Georges Seurat's pointillist painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Sondheim and James Lapine imagined Seurat as an obsessive artist, so consumed with his work that he neglects his muse and lover, Dot. The first act takes place between 1884 and 1886 in George's studio and on the island, where George paints everyone around him. The second act jumps forward 100 years to the 1984 and shows George's great-grandson dealing with his own artistic struggles. The show can be summed up with one of the lyrics from the Act 2 song "Putting It Together": "Art isn't easy."

Sarna Lapine's simple, straightforward production puts the focus on Sondheim's brilliant words and music, but still allows the other elements to make an impression. The real treasure here is Krystina Alabado's performance as Dot. In fine voice, she captures Dot's feistiness and vulnerability. She is funny without being over the top, especially in Act 2, when she has to play much older as Dot's daughter, Marie, now a grandmother.

Graham Phillips, who plays George, has matured as an actor and singer since starring as the bar mitzvah boy in Jason Robert Brown's 13 on Broadway. Those who remember him from that show might wonder how he is old enough to play the role, but he is 29 now, and given that Seurat was 31 when he died and would have been in his mid-20s at the time the show takes place, he is the right age for the part. His youth brings another layer of poignancy to the role, and he handles the complexities of the score with aplomb.

The other star of the show is the orchestra, led by Andy Einhorn, who allows Michael Starobin's original orchestrations to get the showcase they deserve. The minimalist design is essentially a scrim for Tal Yarden's projections, which transport the audience to the world of the paintings, but it allows a view of the orchestra behind. As on Broadway, Ken Billington's lighting design for "Chomolume #7," 1984 George's art piece, dazzles, as suspended lights surround the theater. One of the few design differences from Broadway is the sound design, by Danny Erdberg and Ursula Kwong-Brown; the sound is crystal-clear throughout.

Everything works in this production. There may not be anything groundbreaking about it, but then again, why reinvent something already so good? It gives Angelenos the gift of Sondheim, and there are few greater gifts for theatergoers.