A New Brain
Pegasus Players
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These are the premises of two musicals by playwright James Lapine currently playing in town. A New Brain, written with songwriter William Finn, is receiving its Chicago premiere from the recently renamed Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago, which had a deserved hit with the Lapine-Finn Falsettos a couple of years back. And Lapine’s Pulitzer-winning 1984 Sunday in the Park With George, featuring a score by Stephen Sondheim, is enjoying a revival at Pegasus Players.
In Lapine and Sondheim’s story, Seurat’s artistic triumph comes at considerable personal expense: obsessed with his vision, he neglects his lover Dot–the model for the woman in the hat–even after she informs him she’s pregnant. She finds affection and security in marriage to a baker, Louis, an artist in his own right but as concerned with pleasing his public as Seurat is oblivious to his. Seurat’s early death cuts short his career; but Dot’s daughter, raised in America, plants a family tree that sprouts into George, who’s not only Seurat’s descendant but perhaps his reincarnation.
“Art isn’t easy,” as Sunday in the Park With George reminds us; and the hard-earned accomplishments of this impressive production offer the opportunity to experience one of modern musical theater’s most difficult and beautiful works.
