Off-B'way/Regional Review: The Gospel at Colonus; Sunday in the Park with George

Stephanie Berry, Davone Tines, Frank Senior, and
Samantha Howard in The Gospel at Colonus.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Musical styles are mixed to maximum emotional effect in unusual productions in one new outdoor venue in Manhattan and at the 50th anniversary season of a long-established festival in upstate New York. Lee Breur and Bob Telson’s The Gospel at Colonus returns in a soul-stirring staging in the Amp at Little Island, affording spectacular views of the Hudson River as a galvanizing cast retells the Oedipus myth with passion and fervor. Meanwhile in Cooperstown, New York, the Glimmerglass Festival celebrates its golden anniversary with a moving world premiere (The House on Mango Street) and a pair of innovative, imaginative restagings of two modernist classics from Broadway and the opera repertory (Sunday in the Park with George, The Rake’s Progress).  

The Gospel at Colonus has an unusual production history. After opening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1983 and winning an Obie Award, the adaption of Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus at Colonus set in an African-American Pentecostal church service was performed to acclaim in Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Atlanta and was filmed for PBS. An unlikely Broadway transfer in 1988 starring Morgan Freeman ran for only 61 performances and received only one Tony nomination (for Breuer’s book). 

Kim Burrell (center) and company in
The Gospel at Colonus.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Breur's original production was on a grand scale with an enormous choir. Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s new staging is more intimate with David Zinn’s minimal set suggesting sylvan glades and ancient ritual environments. The role of Oedipus, seeking sanctuary and shelter just before his death after a tragedy-strewn reign as king of Thebes, was originally taken by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. (This casting echoed Oedipus’ horrific self-blinding after discovering he had unknowingly killed his father and slept with his mother.) Here his lines and solos are divided between an intense Stephanie Berry who also serves as narrator and preacher of the service, and operatic bass-baritone Davone Tines and jazz singer Frank Senior. 

The theme of Breur’s adaptation is redemption and salvation after suffering, drawing parallels between Christian theology of love and forgiveness and the Greek emphasis on man’s inevitable fall from grace through hubris. All three Oedipus figures deliver heart-breaking performances, each of their individual styles blending into a harmonious whole. Spectacular vocal variety is on display by Samantha Howard and Ayana George Jackson as Antigone and Ismeme, Oedipus’ grief-stricken daughters, Kim Burrell as the noble Theseus, Jon-Michael Reese as Oedipus’ craven son Polyneices, and Brandon Michael Nase as the Balladeer. Dr. Kevin Bond is a frightening figure as the villainous usurper Creon. Bob Telson’s rollicking, emotional score is given ample metaphorical blood, and literal sweat and tears (and invoking the same from the audience) by the glorious cast and chorus, thanks to co-music directors Dionne McClain-Freeney and James Hall. 

John Riddle in Sunday in
the Park with George.
Credit: Brent DeLanoy/
The Glimmerglass
Festival

Like Gospel, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George did not receive universal acclaim when it opened on Broadway in 1984. Sondheim’s eclectic and innovative score and Lapine’s thought-provoking book and direction were greeted with cautiously mixed reviews and the Tonys for Best Musical, Book and Score went to Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s more stylistically conventional La Cage Aux Folles (though its depiction of a loving gay male couple was revolutionary for tis time.) Sunday subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize, had a decent run of 604 performances, two well-received Broadway revivals, and has achieved status as a jewel in the Sondheim and musical theater crown-canon.  

The Glimmerglass Festival continues its bold programming choices by presenting this unusual musical along with operatic fare. The story is a fictionalized account of the groundbreaking impressionist painter Georges Seurat and his massive pointillist masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. In the first act, we witness the creation of the painting and the breakup of Georges’ relationship with his model and lover, Dot. The second act leaps ahead 100 years and Georges’ great-grandson, another artist also named George, is facing a similar crisis in finding his creative identity. The sojourn of both Georges echoes Sondheim’s seeking new musical paths and encountering short-sighted criticism (The song “No Life” in which Jules, a fellow painter, and his wife Yvonne carp about Seurat’s seemingly cold approach, could be about modern reviewers complaining about Sondheim’s lack of traditional melody.) 

Marina Pires in Sunday in the Park with
George. Credit: Brent DeLanoy/
The Glimmerglass Festival

Ethan Heard’s direction skillfully balances the author’s observations on art and the creative temperament with emotional veracity. He has the company act as a sort of Greek chorus, sitting at the sides of set designer’s John Conklin’s bare raised platform, physically expressing the raging dispute between Georges and Dot (Madison Hurtle is movement director.) In the beautifully staged climax of Act One where Georges uses the actors to create the famous painting, Heard adds a sensitive staging detail. He has Georges bring Dot her hat as seen in the painting and place it lovingly on her head, recalling the earlier song, “Finishing the Hat,” an anthem to artistic drive and the necessary personal compromises a great artist must make. In the second act, Heard makes clever use of the advanced technology of Greg Emetaz’s projection design during “Putting It Together” with silhouettes of George frantically popping all over the set, even on a waitress’ serving tray, as the frazzled creator flits from potential patron to critic to fellow toilers in the arts fields. Amith Chandrashaker’s painterly lighting and Beth Goldberg’s century-spanning costumes adds variety and punch.

As both Georges, John Riddle’s shimmering tenor captures the conflict between creativity and personal connection. Marina Pires feelingly conveys Dot’s desperate hearing to be loved and to understand her artist-lover and is dry and funny as Dot’s daughter Marie, an elderly sage in the second act. Marc Webster and Claire McCahan make for a properly pompous Jules and Yvonne. Loretta Bybee is sharp and witty as Georges’ mother and a contemporary arts writer. Conductor Michael Ellis Ingram provides a lustrous rendition of Sondheim’s sumptuous score, combining Broadway brash with modernist modes.

Reviews of Glimmerglass’s The House on Mango Street and The Rake’s Progress will follow.

The Gospel at Colonus: July 13—26. The Amp at Little Island, Pier 55 in Hudson River Park, W. 13th St., NYC. Running time: 90 mins. with no intermission. littleisland.org.

Sunday in the Park with George: July 12-Aug. 17. Glimmerglass Festival, Alice Busch Opera Theater, 7300 State Highway 80, Cooperstown, NY. Running time: two hours and 50 mins. including intermission. glimmerglass.org.

Sunday in the Park with George
at the Glimmerglass Festival.
Credit: Brent DeLanoy/
The Glimmerglass Festival