London, Day 9: Wednesday Night at Sunday in the Park With George

On Wednesday night, I went with two other students to see the musical Sunday in the Park with George. It's about the life and art of painter Georges Seurat, the developer of a technique called pointillism, which uses a mixture of colored dots to create the image. In particular, the musical focused on a painting with an excruciatingly long name, which is featured to the right in an image I stole from Wikipedia.

I can't say the musical was that exciting. I've never been a huge fan of musicals, except for Fiddler on the Roof. Still, the story was engaging enough, and the positioning of the actors to mimic the painting, as well as the spectacular background animations which appeared on the white walls behind the actors, was quite original and fun to watch.

Some of the major themes of the play are the way that various elements of color (as well as the human elements such as commissions to pay for the art) are brought together to create art, obsession with art and the isolation it can cause, and the need to make something original.

The theater (or theatre) was pretty small and elaborately decorated. Also, they sold ice cream in the lobby. It wasn't all that different from seeing a play in Phoenix. However, outside the theater was quite different. There's an entire section of town that is a kind of theater district. The roads are completely lined with theaters and bright lights, as you can see in the photo to the right.