On an Ordinary Sunday
George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884) has caught my attention for two reasons: 1) The painting is being taken off view at the Chicago Institute, and 2) Stephen Sondheim’s passing has caused a revival of his musical based on the painting, Sunday in the Park with George (1984). The work, both the painting and musical, focus on a group of ordinary people escaping the labor of the week, desiring respite in the gathering place of La Grande Jatte. The interlude, a recess of alchemy, transforms into a colorful gathering where the common become marvelous.
The extraordinary comes to life in the closing of Act I from Sondheim’s musical. The characters, living independently, are gathered in the park chaotically arguing, squabbling, struggling, and fighting. The painter, simultaneously inspired and aggravated by the chaos, shouts, “Order, Design, Tension, Balance, Harmony!” The characters begin singing, slowly strolling to recreate the tableau of Seurat’s famous painting while the song swells into a choral powerhouse. During the sequence as voices climb and fall, the audience realizes the ordinary has become the sublime: two women are fishing, a man is playing the trumpet, a couple holds their newborn, a woman has a monkey on a leash, and a little girl in white, the only figure not cast with a shadow, looks blankly forward toward the viewer. In the final moments of Act I, the lyrics herald, “On an ordinary Sunday,” clearly underscoring the miraculous contained in the ordinary.
As we are on the brink of a new year, I have thought about this scene and painting. Being on the cusp of work beyond Pullen, I have thought about this painting and musical. Not being one to think that the sacred is confined to one book or building, I find a great spirituality in this pairing: the ordinary can be sublime if we work and live together. This has been my experience as we have gathered for worshiping, feeding the hungry, tending to the sick, and housing the poor. This will continue to be my experience as we meet and continue to embody our collective dream, singing and knowing, “It’s an ordinary Sunday.”
Brian Crisp
