‘Sunday in the Park With George’Īn incomparable study of the profit and cost of artistic creation, this 1984 musical, loosely based on the life of Georges Seurat, was captured in 1986 with Mandy Patinkin as the pointillist painter and Peters as his muse, Dot.
Stream it on Pluto TV and Tubi rent it on YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play and Vudu. The songs are flimsy when compared with Sondheim’s later work, but they delight - from the assertiveness of “Comedy Tonight” to the cheekiness of “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid” and the breezy whimsy of “Lovely.” ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’Ī work of impeccable silliness and absolute froth, the 1966 film version of this meringue-like musical, stitched together from a handful of Plautus comedies, stars Zero Mostel as a scheming servant and Jack Gilford as a gentler one, with the future Phantom Michael Crawford as the love-struck master. Stream the 2010 version from Broadway HD. Rent the 1987 version from Apple TV and Amazon Prime. Or for a more modern take, try the 2010 version, recorded live in London’s Regent’s Park and streamable on Broadway HD, with Hannah Waddingham, of “Ted Lasso,” as the witch. Children will listen, so watch it with yours.
But the 1987 version, recorded for PBS’s “American Playhouse” and available on Apple TV, is a superb example of pre-“Hamilton” performance capture, preserving the indelible performances of Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason and Chip Zien. Moving nimbly among moods and styles, Sondheim’s lyrics range from utterly innocent (“Little Lamb”) to tastily racy (“You Gotta Get a Gimmick”), with at least one number, “Rose’s Turn,” that suggests the radical revision of the musical that he would later attempt.Įnjoy, if you must, Rob Marshall’s overblown 2014 adaptation of this fairy tale concatenation.
Though dinged at the time for casting Rosalind Russell as the stage monster Mama Rose - rather than Ethel Merman, who had created the role - Mervyn LeRoy’s 1962 movie offers a backstage pass to bygone forms of American entertainment: vaudeville and burlesque. Here is what Sondheim had to say about it.