Sunday in the Park

I spent the long holiday weekend in Columbus, Ohio, where I attended the wedding of my friends Ilana (a long-time friend, co-theater-creator, and conspirator from Rice) and Mike (her lovely new husband and a brilliant lawyer). Ilana and I have always been crazy about Sondheim musicals, and appropriately, I made a pre-ceremony visit to see Columbus' extraordinary Topiary Garden with a small group of friends.

And what, you may wonder, could be so extraordinary about a topiary garden? (And where does Sondheim come in?)

Well, the shrubbery in this particular garden has been sculpted and coaxed to resemble Georges Seurat's famous painting, "A Sunday On The Island Of La Grande Jatte," and it is, to quote the website, "a landscape of a painting of a landscape." The results are both beautiful and a bit strange. It's not a place I'd want to wander around in alone at night, lest the figures start moving. But it's certainly a novelty, and something to see (for free) if you should ever find yourself wandering around Columbus. And for musical theater aficionados, it will instantly strike up the gorgeous chords of Sondheim's masterful musical, Sunday in the Park with George, which tells the persuasive fictional tale of the painting's creation.