“It Takes Two”

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’sSunday in the Park with Georgeis divided into two acts that take place in different centuries and feature two sets of seemingly different characters. A close reading of the musical demonstrates, however, that most of the characters in act 2 either present another facet of the parallel character in act 1 or reveal another side to these characters’ functions in the overall scheme of the show. Through the use of a system of doubling, whereby actors played parallel characters in acts 1 and 2, the original New York production enhanced the work’s exploration of the role art and the artist play in society and of how this role has changed in the century between 1884 and 1984.