This Public Broadcast System film of an American Playhouse production just wasn't very interesting or entertaining to me. "Sunday in the Park with George" is billed as a comedy, drama and romance. Perhaps there was some insight in the promoters who didn't list it as a musical. It is a musical, but one that is very short on music and talent. The script for this play and film is very slow. The comedy is very little. And the music is sparse. The method used, of the painter set a little off-stage with the players on stage is so theater-bound as to be a distraction for film. It's one thing to go to a theater to see a live play, and another to see a story on film that should eliminate all the periphery. In live stage, it is part of the setting. In film, it's a distraction The story itself isn't that good or interesting. The talent is so-so. I enjoy Bernadette Peters as an actress. As a singer, she is mediocre. But musicals should have excellent singers. Alas, this production was an early indication that the days of truly great singers for films (and stage) had passed. Musicals since the last couple decades of the 20th century have had scores with jazzy numbers that tend to play over the vocals of the singers. So, better singers aren't as necessary. But this seems to create a type of artificial musical. No longer do we have films with glorious voices and songs that made up many of the grand musicals of the past. Are there no singers to replace Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand and their likes? Are there no new singing actresses to replace Judy Garland, Deanna Durbin, Doris Day, Mitzi Gaynor or Shirley Jones?There seem to be no male singers either to replace Gordon MacRea, Howard Keel, Nelson Eddy, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, or Bobby Darin. Nor are their modern song and dance talents the likes of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Ginger Rogers. This filmed stage production just is not my cup of tea. One suspects it plays to a very narrow audience. Unless one is used to live theater and less than great musical entertainment, this film isn't very likely to be very enjoyable.

It is now about 20 years after the original airing of this masterpiece, and all it took was hearing one song for the whole of it to come back to me: the music, the colors, the way a masterpiece of visual art was brought to life on the stage.I knew nothing of Georges Seurat prior to seeing the play. In fact, i still know practically nothing about him. That didn't matter one bit. This play uses the birthing of a new art form to examine life, love, culture and personal commitment.Mandy Patinkin's performance in this televised version was masterful. The entire production was compelling and emotional. And -- in a rare treat -- the videotaped version of the live stageplay was effective and artfully accomplished.If you have never seen "Sunday in the Park with George," find a way to do so. The show will not disappoint.

Sunday IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE was the first, if memory serves, Broadway musical based on a painting. This sensitive and moving look at the artist Georges Suerat, through his most famous work, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grand Jatte", was unlike anything Broadway had seen up to this point. Suerat serves as sort of a narrator and Greek chorus, as well as the main character, as James Lapine's smart book takes what little was known of the artist's life and fleshes out characters from the people in the painting. Broadway's most gifted composer, Stephen Sondheim, crafted a lilting and beautiful score filled with clever lyrics and lush melodies. Sondheim is the best lyricist in the theater because he writes as people talk, not as they sing. The first act follows the relationship between Suerat, electrically portrayed by Mandy Patinkin and his model/mistress Dot, the luminous Bernadette Peters, as their on again off again relationship is constantly challenged by his obsession with his work. The second act features Patinkin as Suerat's grandson and Peters as his grandmother as we see the modern sculptor struggling with a heredity he continues to deny until a fateful trip to the island where the original painting had been done. Director Terry Hughes has lovingly captured this intimate story on video and given us close-ups and sweeping camera shots that were not possible to experience seeing the show onstage, making the show even more personal and involving. Mandy Patinkin commands the stage as George with a stylish stage presence and magnificent singing voice that fills the theater as well as the television screen and is matched note for note by Peters, who makes Dot a tragic and fragile heroine and brings a lovely touch of humanity to the ditzy grandmother, Marie. It should be noted that at the time this was filmed, Ms. Peters was vocally and physically exhausted. She had already left this show and was in rehearsals for the show that would finally win her a Tony Award, SONG & DANCE. Some vocal strain can be noted with Peters, particularly in one unmerciful close-up where her voice just gives out on her, but Peters is a pro and delivers a performance of opening night quality. Though not for all tastes, Sunday IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE is a lush and lovely musical theater experience that all those with a passion for the genre should experience.

This is a masterpiece. Sondhiem and Patinkin: American theatre's greatest talents in their fields, join forces in a show of tremendous complexity and humanity. For the uninitiated this can be a hard one to warm up to; but stick with it. It's a play about how disjointed pieces of life and art, some of which are individually unappealing, can come together with such beauty, if the eye arranges them in a certain way. Patinkin is, as usual, amazing, Peters is heartbreaking, and Sondheim's score and lyrics take musical theatre to a new level. "Finishing the Hat" is the best marriage of song and singer in the history of the stage. What a wonderful meditation on art and life!