Stage REview

SUNDAY IN THE PARK

WITH GEORGE

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by James Lapine. Directed by Peter DuBois. Presented by Huntington Theatre Company. At BU Theatre, Boston, through Oct. 16. Tickets: 617-266-0800, www.huntingtontheatre.org

Within the glittering oeuvre of Stephen Sondheim, “Sunday in the Park With George’’ occupies a distinctive place, and not just because it’s the musical that landed Sondheim (and collaborator James Lapine) a Pulitzer Prize.

A teeming canvas of a work, the cerebral “Sunday in the Park With George’’ seems unlikely to ever become widely popular, as Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd’’ has somehow managed to do despite its blood-soaked darkness and unsparingly bleak vision of human nature, and as, perhaps less surprisingly, “Into the Woods’’ has done. No marketing department would try to sell “Sunday in the Park With George’’ as kicky and fun and loaded with catchy tunes, as it might attempt with, say, “Company,’’ or even “Follies.’’

No, “Sunday in the Park With George’’ is probably destined to always exert a more limited appeal. The Huntington Theatre Company is currently making a forceful case for its importance in a production, directed by Peter DuBois, that is simply exquisite in many respects, though marred by an insufficiently compelling lead performance.

The musical was inspired by Georges Seurat’s painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.’’ In the engrossing, well-shaped Act 1, which takes place from 1884 to 1886, we see a fictionalized Seurat, here a painter called George, submerging everything else in his life — including his frustrated mistress, Dot — while he labors obsessively in his studio over what would become his masterpiece. That is, when he’s not scrutinizing and sketching the regular visitors to a park on an island in the Seine. (The excellent supporting cast includes Boston faves Bobbie Steinbach and Aimee Doherty.)

In the relatively thin and underdeveloped Act 2, set a century later, George’s great-grandson, a conceptual artist also named George, reaches a creative crossroads as he struggles to reconcile the competing demands of art, commerce, and ambition.

Jenni Barber delivers a luminous, witty, and wonderfully assured performance as Dot (she also plays Dot’s daughter, who is the grandmother of the conceptual artist). Making no attempt to mimic Bernadette Peters, who originated the role in 1984, Barber offers a fully realized portrait of Dot that is both physically and emotionally expressive. The actress communicates Dot’s yearning for George’s whole-hearted love and commitment — and the steely will that enables her to forge her own path once she realizes he can only make that commitment to his art.

If only that were more apparent in Adam Chanler-Berat’s portrayal of George. It’s not that Chanler-Berat needs to rival the intensity Mandy Patinkin brought to the role in the original Broadway production — few can (or probably should) match Patinkin in that department — but we need to believe that George is a tormented genius who would almost literally give his life for his art. Chanler-Berat never persuades us that he is or that he would. His George seems more distracted than driven, with little sense of inner turmoil. Moreover, scant electricity flows between George and Barber’s Dot, so their eventual parting doesn’t yield the emotional payoff it should.

For a casual Sondheim fan, “Sunday in the Park With George’’ is probably easier to respect than to love. The nonpareil composer-lyricist has always been uncompromising about the things that matter, and this musical is what it admirably is: an austere, formally rigorous attempt to understand the tidal pull and human toll of artistic creation and obsession. Sondheim’s knowledge of such matters is reflected in his brilliant score, studded with gems like “Finishing the Hat,’’ “We Do Not Belong Together,’’ “Putting It Together,’’ “Children and Art,’’ and the shiver-inducing “Sunday.’’

For director DuBois, “Sunday in the Park With George’’ marks the second step toward the artistic director’s ambitious goal — which the Huntington is calling the Sondheim Cycle — of presenting all of the musicals for which Sondheim wrote both the music and the lyrics. (The first step was “A Little Night Music,’’ also helmed by DuBois, which opened the Huntington’s season last year.)

As if taking his cue from a lyric in the Act 2 song “Move On’’ — when Dot urges George to “Give us more to see’’ — DuBois brings his considerable creativity and pictorial sense to bear on this beautifully staged and visually ravishing production. He does indeed give us plenty to see, drawing on the talents of the renowned set designer Derek McLane, who designed “Night Music’’ and the Broadway revival of “Follies.’’ McLane’s set for “Sunday in the Park With George’’ conjures the sense of a painting waiting to be inhabited, as, of course, it eventually is.

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by James Lapine. Directed by Peter DuBois. Presented by Huntington Theatre Company. At BU Theatre, Boston, through Oct. 16. Tickets: 617-266-0800, www.huntingtontheatre.org

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.