Sunset Blvd.
The ensemble of Sunset Blvd.
When Sunset Boulevard scribes Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett wrote, “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close up,” I don’t think they meant this close.
True, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical adaptation of the 1950 film is hardly lacking in subtlety. Lloyd Webber, known for spectacle musicals (see Cats and Starlight Express), failed to capture the anguish lurking beneath Norma Desmond’s desperation and the pain, along with anger, at having been abandoned by her fans. Instead, he grasped at the spectacle of her denial, leaning into humor rather than agony. At times, his score and Christopher Hampton and Don Black’s book pan out too far from Norma, focusing on the noise around her rather than the star herself.
The current revival, directed by British wunderkind of minimalism - the title is shortened to Sunset Blvd. - Jamie Lloyd, provides Norma her close-up before she requests it. This brutalist, stripped-down production has no staircase, no turban and no car that propels the story into action. What it does have is a 23-foot LED screen, providing/showing extreme close-ups of the actors’ faces (video designs are by Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom).
There is no real set in this Sunset Blvd., nor any props. But stripping a production down to excavate the core of its text can’t be successful when the core is empty, leaving a hollow feeling of unfulfillment.
In that way, the audience can relate to Joe (Tom Francis), a jaded screenwriter struggling in Hollywood. While on the run from loan sharks, he hides his car on the titular road, unaware he has stumbled onto the home of silent film star Norma Desmond, where she lives in isolation with her devoted butler Max (David Thaxton). Desperate to return to stardom, Norma hires Joe to assist in writing the script she is certain will ensure her comeback in cinema. It’s a deal with the Devil, but Joe doesn’t know it then. (The audience does, after the opening scene shows Joe emerge from a bodybag and inform the audience he will tell us what really happened.)
At first glance, the casting of pop star Nicole Scherzinger as Norma is puzzling. Scherzinger, who is only 46 years old, looks far too young and beautiful (especially in designer Jack Knowles’ lighting) to be plausible as a faded has-been. No effort is made to hide that beauty. She is dressed in a slinky black slip, ad her hair is long and gleaming. And, as the close-ups repeatedly remind us, her face is stunning. She looks vibrant, and her voice sounds the same. While Scherzinger’s casting could be seen as a commentary on the cruelty of how the world views aging and the value placed on notoriety and being young and beautiful, it hardly helps clarify that message when the actress playing a young Norma, looks almost exactly identical.
Scherzinger’s portrayal of Norma is equally as puzzling as her casting. It’s difficult to feel sympathy when her performance includes so many winks to the audience. A faded former star would not twerk across the stage, nor, when embracing Joe, leap into his arms and wrap her legs around his waist. This humor, alongside the technology, detracts from the emotion of the story. Cast members prowl the stage with hand-held cameras, an idea that sounds promising in concept but falls flat in execution.
The same could be said of the opening to Act Two, which begins with Joe singing the title song. Traditionally staged with Joe lounging by Norma’s pool, Lloyd stages the song in a flashy, yet detrimental, way. Those aforementioned hand-held cameras film Francis in his dressing room and follows him as he makes his way through backstage, greeting ensemble members before he exits the theater and walks down 44th Street before returning to the theater and finishing the song onstage.
The stunt receives thunderous applause, but is detrimental to the show. The song “Sunset Boulevard” articulates Joe’s disgust with himself for becoming a kept man and scorn for the Hollywood machine while foreshadowing the tragic conclusion to his story. Instead, the audience is jolted into surprised laughter when they see a life-size Andrew Lloyd Webber cutout backstage alongside someone dressed in a chimpanzee costume and a photo of the Pussycat Dolls. Further distractions await outside as Francis navigates the crowds, with people attempting to join him on his walk. The effect is momentarily impressive, but its effect is discombobulating.
The remainder of the show offers little clarity, as Lloyd’s staging is consistently confusing and at times inexplicable. The actors speak to each other while staring straight out into the audience rather than actually interact. Lloyd Webber’s buoyant, upbeat numbers - the opening “Let’s Do Lunch” and Act Two’s “By This Time Next Year” are choreographed to feature the ensemble standing in a single line, stepping out only to speak or sing their lines. The crescendos to the final notes sound more like battle cries. During the few scenes that Norma is not in, Scherzinger stands immobile and center stage while characters speak of her, a choice that adds nothing to the scene and seems to have been made simply to be unconventional for the sake of being unconventional.
The show belongs to Scherzinger, whether she is speaking and singing or simply standing onstage. She’s deeply committed to the role, seen clearly in Norma’s two big songs, “With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye.” But her more confusing choices, like Norma’s modern dance moves and her self-conscious humor, distract from her impressive performance. It’s difficult to believe this woman actually is losing her mind when she acts self-aware, pretending to burst into tragic tears and, after getting what she wants, immediately stops, making it clear her tears were false.
Tom Francis and Nicole Scherzinger
Francis gives a solid performance as Joe, attempting to penetrate the fog of technology and excessive actual fog, which floods the stage for almost the entire show. His inner turmoil is quietly apparent, especially the conflicted affection he feels for Norma. When he partners with ambitious script reader Betty Schaefer (an appealing Grace Hodgett Young) and their working relationship grows romantic, his desperation to escape Norma’s clutches and become a better person is apparent.
One wishes Lloyd trusted his cast, and the audience, to effectively perform and understand the show, rather than smother it in technology and distraction. The camera doesn’t need to zoom in on Joe and Betty as they talk; the audience can see on its own that the two are connecting. The choice to feature Betty’s fiancé Artie (Diego Andres Rodriguez) on the 23-foot screen, with a single tear running down his face, was laughable in its excess.
That might be the last moment of laughter in the show. Its tragic conclusion is drawn out for far too long, especially when the ensemble frantically runs back and forth onstage for no reason, and even the curtain call is stone-faced. A close-up on that giant screen of just one smile would have been welcome.