ALW’s “Sunset Blvd” is Revived Starkly and Intensely Thanks to the Other Lloyd and the Greatest Pussycat Star on Broadway – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Broadway Theatre Review: Sunset Blvd

By Ross

The vibrating excitement emulating from the crowd at the St. James Theatre on Broadway is infectious. It thunders loudly in the dark and smoky space, waiting for the thrill ride to unfold. Igniting the spark inside the score, Sunset Blvd opens sharply, with a romantic ballet of historic fiction giving way to a defiant introduction to the inhumanity and conveyor belt cynicism of the Hollywood studio system. Powerfully portrayed within the intensely defined choreography of Fabian Aloise (Regents Park’s Evita), the lineup charges the shallowness and insensitivity into the forefront, centering our Joe, played magnificently by Tom Francis (West End’s & Juliet; Hope Mill’s Rent) at its core. The framing infuses him with that powerless feeling as much as all those who move through the line to stand beside him, side by side, blank-faced and dully disconnected. Dressed in black and white street fashion, that works casually well (mostly) within the formula, and outfitted by the master set designer Soutra Gilmour (Broadway/NYTW’s Merrily We Roll Along), the crew of actors definitely finds themselves in the right party, lined up in the smartest formulation and sweeping us forward with a deadpanned “let’s do lunch, gotta run” that works its smartly crafted magic almost instantly.

Singing the dusty history out of a score by Don Black and Christopher Hampton (Stephen Ward), backed by Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s musical lusciousness, Sunset Blvd climbs and claws its way into the bright lights created impressively by designer Jack Knowles (West End’s Best of Enemies) against a gargantuan screened backdrop of intense imagery and props. The pitch to us all by the other Lloyd, the same director who revolved into view the meticulously stunning Broadway revival of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House as well as his precise and masterfully angular Harold Pinter’s Betrayal and the unparalleled amplification of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet in the West End – three productions that will forever be etched in my brain and lovingly referred to in my theatrical memory – is as propulsive and thrilling as ever possible, for the most part, tearing it down as only director Jamie Lloyd can do, and rebranding and rebuilding it up into something that we never thought possible, especially given the source material.

I have never really been a fan of Sunset Blvd, even though I saw it both times it arrived on Broadway starring Glenn Close. The show, based on the 1950 Billy Wilder movie, is considered one of Webber’s big musicals, but in reality, it is one of the great financial losers of its time, a ‘hit-flop’ as it is called by many in the industry. The ‘hit’ played 977 performances when it first arrived on Broadway and had the highest advance in the history of Broadway ticket sales selling a total of more than a million tickets in total. But the ‘flop’ lost somewhere in the realm of 20 million dollars, taking into consideration all the lawsuits paid out to its dropped stars, Patti LuPone and Faye Dunaway, and the huge weekly running costs of both the Broadway and the touring company.  It never came close to breaking even. Regardless of all that history, Sunset Blvd is still considered by many as one of Webber’s musical masterpieces, even if overblown like most of his other initial formulas.

But under the precise and daring eye of Jamie Lloyd, this Sunset Blvd surges forward, embracing the overblown and infusing it with a guttural power that is almost animalistic. As our Joe runs and the theatrical credits majestically roll, both early on and later, we find ourselves thrust into one of the many symbolic temples we once worshipped in the darkness, face to amplified face with our lost leading lady, one of the biggest stars of them all, Norma Desmond, played to outrageous perfection by the captivating Nicole Scherzinger (West End’s Cats; Hollywood Bowl’s Rent). It’s a sharply defined dynamic reimagining that surges forward like a caged beast waiting in desperation for something to satisfy its hunger. And bite into it, she does, with a force that is undeniable. With one look, she rocks the foundations of the St. James Theatre, causing a mid-show standing ovation to erupt, and it isn’t the one and only time this thunderous applause happens.

The brave and ferocious Scherzinger electrifies the space with her demented embrace of the line: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small”, diving into the camp melodrama in close-up as her ode to Gloria Swanson is projected to perfection on that huge screen that hangs there just waiting for her involvement. Thanks to the impressive work of video designer and cinematographer Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom (Jamie Lloyd’s Romeo & Juliet), the effect is both captivating and hilariously enriching, dignifying the visual and amplifying the songs laid down in worship at her bare feet. The music throbs in her presence, and is embraced by her cast as well as an audience that screams out encouragement at every chance they get (surprising me with their unabashed enthusiasm). Matched by the powerfully voiced David Thaxton (Donmar’s Passion) as her main support structure, Max Von Mayerling is a gargoyle mask forever propping up the fragile femme fatale with his forceful embodiment of her manservant. He’s the sometimes overblown counterpoint and forceful protector, blasting out “The Greatest Star of All” to thunderous approval from all of us out in the darkness. Even if he is a bit of a monstrous presence from a very different kind of film.

Tom Francis, as the flailing screenwriter Joe Gillis, is the other star that almost blinds us with his bright light. In a remarkable performance worthy of the accolades he has, and will, receive, his Joe engages with the majestically delusional and needy Norma with all the complicated charged-up energy required for his descent, while never losing his cool masculine demeanor. His swagger through the hallways and out into the streets of Broadway proper is engaging in its cute referential nods to the hysteria of stars and their grand pussycat marquee power, while also being the perfect power ballad reckoning to pull us back into Act Two. He too gets the standing ovation treatment when he blasts himself back onto the stage through the side doors, backed by his fierce company of actors gleefully willing to brave the wild wonton wilderness outside their Broadway theatre. It really is something ever-so-Meta to see, as he makes his way powerfully back to his place behind Norma and her subservient Max.

The one framing that could have used some reductive editing would be the unrequired love story and song between him and the smartly determined script reader, Betty Schaefer, embodied well by a beautifully voiced Grace Hodgett Young (West End’s Hadestown). Shadowed by her boyfriend, Artie, playfully portrayed by Diego Andres Rodriguez (“Teenage Vampire 3“) alongside Nicole’s Norma, watching and waiting, this secondary plot reframing, although effective in the first half as an alternative window that Joe could have climbed through, causes the second act to falter. It stalls like Joe’s car outside Norma’s mansion making us wonder where all the energy just went. It’s as if Jamie Lloyd lost his way on that winding overly traditional song road that doesn’t quite fit with the sound and the speed of the rest of the show. Did he run out of his usual tricks of the trade? As presented, with Amzi and Ransom’s live feed camera rigs following them around the stage giving us comic glimpses into other cast member activities (that have nothing really to do with the love song), the forceful drive of the whole grinds us down in a formulaic framing that doesn’t feel necessary to fuel the jealousy of Norma. She’s already there, desperate and suicidal, clinging to her delusional movie star need for her handsome young co-star to hold on to and dance with her for their imaginary Hollywood close-up.

“With One Look” and “As if We Never Said Goodbye,” with Scherzinger engulfed in smoke and illusionary mirrors, embodied by the fantastically limber Hannah Yun Chamberlain (Regents Park’s Legally Blond) as the Young Norma, emblazons this immensely successful recreation of Sunset Blvd with distinction, obscuring everything that had proceeded it. The revival gives Jamie Lloyd (and the other Lloyd) another even bigger triumph on Broadway which will most likely roll like those clouds through the Tony Awards next spring, grabbing as many awards as possible (unless something surprising takes this show on).

Having discarded all that pomp and circumstance that is typical of Andrew Lloyd Webber, except of course his lovingly intense use of fog, this Sunset Blvd, with its brief and astounding flash of color, red light warning us all that is coming (not that we really needed it), gives us an ending that is sure to be remembered. The very loud and distinct darkness and the show’s brief flashes of white light are profoundly disturbing, suggesting something almost animalistic in its attack on our senses, beyond Chekhov’s gun rule. I’m not sure we needed the last sung refrain words to make the final point. Those iconic lines spoken might have been enough, and possibly. more dynamic, but the image and its (star) power are completely undeniable and unforgettable.