‘Park’ opens with new picture

NEW YORK -- “White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So many possibilities.”

Those tantalizing words come from “Sunday in the Park With George,” the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical about French painter Georges Seurat and the creation of his masterpiece, “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”

But can the same clarion call be applied to a stage revival, specifically a reexamination of “Sunday in the Park,” whose original production is still revered by show buffs nearly 25 years after it first opened? Now musical-theater enthusiasts have a chance to find out, this time at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Studio 54, where an acclaimed British revival featuring its London stars -- as well as a new American supporting cast -- is on view.

In 1984, “Sunday,” which starred Mandy Patinkin as Seurat and Bernadette Peters as his mistress, showcased a three-dimensional re-creation of the painting by set designer Tony Straiges. In 2008, its production design has been pushed into the 21st century by director Sam Buntrock, who employs technology that didn’t exist when the show first played New York.

The revival uses “projection and animation to create the internal world of the artist as he strives to complete the painting,” says the youthful, 32-year-old Buntrock, struggling to simplify how its complex technology works. “We begin with the very first line of the very first sketch [for the painting]. We explore . . . the actual painting of the painting, as it were.”

Buntrock’s vision for the musical was born in 2005 at a tiny London theater (less than 200 seats) with the unlikely name of the Menier Chocolate Factory, which it once was.

“I initially mentioned [the show] to the guy who runs the Menier as a joke, and he said, ‘Well, if you can find a way, we’ll do it,’ ” Buntrock recalls. “My background is both as a director and an animator. It didn’t take very long for me to work out. . . . It snowballed from there.”

In fact, Buntrock wasn’t aware of Sondheim’s work until the early 1990s, when he saw the London premiere of another Sondheim-Lapine musical, “Into the Woods.” He then watched a videotape of the original New York production of “Sunday” and heard the cast recording. He was immediately taken with the musical.

“The show is quintessentially theatrical,” the director says. “It tells a story as a musical in a way that couldn’t be told any other way. I had always heard rumors that people didn’t seem to think Sondheim’s work was emotional, and I had always found ‘Sunday in the Park’ quite devastatingly powerful.”

The emotional content of the show also attracted its two Olivier Award-winning stars: Daniel Evans, the Welsh actor who plays Seurat, and Jenna Russell, who does double duty in the musical. In the first act, the actress portrays Dot, Seurat’s mistress, and in the second, set nearly 100 years later, she is the elderly Marie, the granddaughter of the artist and his muse.

“I’ve always wanted to play Dot,” says Russell, a musical-theater veteran who played Sarah Brown opposite Ewan McGregor’s Sky Masterson in a long-running London revival of “Guys and Dolls.”

“I never really thought too much about Marie -- and now actually love her the most,” says Russell, who joined “Sunday in the Park” after the actress who originated the roles in London became pregnant. “I think Marie is an extraordinary woman.”

Evans is an experienced Sondheim performer, having played Charley Kringas in an acclaimed “Merrily We Roll Along” at London’s Donmar Warehouse. He, like Russell, has had an eclectic stage career. The performer has done more than just musicals -- Shakespeare and Ibsen as well as modern playwrights such as Caryl Churchill and Christopher Hampton.

“I think Sondheim writes as an actor,” Evans explains. “When we did ‘Merrily We Roll Along,’ he came to work with us during previews. It occurred to me then that when he gave me a session on ‘Franklin Shepard, Inc.’ [Evans’ big tongue-twisting number in the show] . . . it was obvious that he put himself in the place of Charley Kringas.

“That’s when it suddenly dawned on me: ‘Oh, that’s why actors love doing his work.’ . . . He writes thoughts -- musical thoughts. It’s not about tunes. Although you get that as well.”

Evans recalled the first New York run-through in front of Sondheim and Lapine. “You can imagine how scary that was,” the actor says with a laugh.

“I don’t think he cares if you are flat or sharp. I think he wants you to sing the right notes. What notes he gave us [suggested] we were being a bit too respectful. We were honoring the score too much and that it needed more life.”

Russell agrees.

“Obviously, there are points and hills that he wants you to climb and make sure you are in the right place to get there. He actually gives you a lot of freedom. I find that the most extraordinary thing. A lot of the time he goes, ‘Just get on with it.’ Or ‘Don’t worry about hitting that note, as long as you hit the right points.’ ”

The show has been quite a coup for the Roundabout, which has become the New York company to go to for Sondheim revivals. Already under its belt: “Company,” “Follies,” “Pacific Overtures” and “Assassins.”

“About 1992, I made the decision that the Roundabout was going to start doing musical revivals, which it had never done before,” says Todd Haimes, the theater’s artistic director.

“We felt that with the exception of ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,’ ‘Gypsy,’ ‘West Side Story,’ most of Steve’s musicals, at that point, had not been revived,” Haimes says. “And we felt that a not-for-profit theater was the perfect place to do that. So we started with ‘Company’ [in 1995], and then the other ones followed.

“One of the things Steve revels in is having artists reinterpret his work -- which is not true of all authors. It’s an enormous tribute to him that he loves that -- that he doesn’t feel everything is set in stone or a show has to be done the way it was originally.”

Now on Haimes’ wish list: “Merrily We Roll Along,” which was a 16-performance flop in 1981. “It’s never been revived, and we’re the perfect place for it.”