'Sunday' blends Seurat’s colors

Order, design, composition, balance and harmony are the principles that once guided the life and work of French painter George Seurat. In the model of the master himself, the students behind Sunday in the Park with George, which opened Friday on the Mainstage in the Loeb Drama Center, followed the same principles in their own production. Though the black-tie opening night was only at half capacity, the crowd responded enthusiastically to the stellar performance by the cast and crew.

The musical is a dramatization of Seurat’s most famous work, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” The painting employs pointillism, a technique developed by Seurat that uses small brush strokes and dots of color, which the eye blends when viewed from a distance.

The characters in the first act of the musical are all taken from the painting, and the production physically recreates the painted image at the end of the first act as all of the characters assume the poses of the figures in Seurat’s work. The ornate nature of the artwork necessary for the set significantly complicated the production.

“Sunday is a tremendously challenging piece of theater to both an audience and a production team. Sondheim’s gorgeous, pointillist-inspired score is difficult on a first listen and far from easy to learn,” says director Adam R. Perlman ’04-’05. “The technical aspects of the show are also immense and quite challenging to design, create and coordinate. Yet on a slight budget, this group has excelled.

Though Perlman seems touched with a natural propensity for directing, Perlman’s interest in theater didn’t bloom until late in high school. His quickly developing skills, combined with an acute visual orientation, brought him to Sunday.

“Every time I read or see a play, I can’t help staging and restaging in my head. The things I’ve directed or want to direct begin with a series of images,” he says. “Sunday began with these series of moments of George cast against the background of his park, trying to focus on the finished product, yet trapped between two worlds.”

In order to accurately represent the combined visions of Perlman, Sondheim and Seurat, scenic designer Michael P. Lynch ’05 and his crew began working on the set nearly six weeks ago, devoting countless hours to the daunting undertaking.

“Like all theatrical design, it’s a collaborative effort with the designer and director,” says Lynch. “The difficulty with this set especially was coordinating the design and construction process.  It was a very complex set to put together on paper, but I had to work as fast as humanly possible in order to allow us to start actually constructing it on time.”

Perlman’s personal enthusiasm for musicals is a rare phenomenon in the Harvard artistic community. Indeed, it seems that this lover of musicals is the only person on campus directing them. In addition to Sunday, he directed this season’s only other Loeb musical, A New Brain, on the Loeb Ex stage.

“There is a paucity of people here willing and able to direct musical theater, and I think a lot of that comes from the lack of value and support given to the genre,” says Perlman. “I think the curricular review could investigate this by looking into a class in musical theater, one less specialized than the current offering in the music department.”

Nevertheless, Perlman is not letting the widespread apathy towards musicals at Harvard deter him from that path. He plans to graduate in January, 2005 and to write an original play as his thesis. That, in turn, may lead to a future with directing and theater beyond graduation.

But for now, Perlman’s focus is Sunday, a project that’s become intensely personal for him. A Stephen Sondheim aficionado, Perlman says, “Sunday in the Park with George is his most beautiful. And there is a moment in Act II, during the ‘Sunday Reprise,’ when I lose it. No matter what production, no matter what’s come before. Some of the most heartbreaking moments and musical phrases in all of theater are in this show.”

Sunday in the park with george

Location: Loeb Mainstage Theatre

Dates: April 30-May 8

director: Adam R. Perlman ’04

producers: Carla M. Mastraccio ’04 and Kristel C. Leow ’04