All that insanity in Gloria Swanson’s eyes on the finish of Billy Wilder’s 1950 masterpiece Sundown Boulevard is amplified to breathtaking lengths in Jamie Lloyd‘s commanding and lovely renovation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1993 musical Sundown Blvd. With a career-expanding efficiency that redefines the one-time Dancing With The Stars competitor Nicole Scherzinger as completely as Lloyd’s staging does Lloyd Webber’s musical, the revival opening tonight at Broadway‘s St. James Theatre is a stunner, stark at all times, humorous generally and in the end terrifying.
The musical – which, just like the movie, has heretofore been Sundown Boulevard however is now stylized with Blvd.; to keep away from confusion, I’ll consult with the stage present, previous and current iterations, with the abbreviation – has at all times been one thing of an also-ran within the Lloyd Webber oeuvre, identified principally for 2, three, possibly 4 of its greatest songs, a giant ol’ staircase and the stinging behind-the-scenes feud between the composer and his unique star Patti LuPone manner again within the day.
The present revival, if it does nothing else, ought to put the present’s combined status to relaxation. With its silent movie-style black & white shade scheme and heavy-shadowed expressionistic sculpting, Sundown Blvd. is kind of not like the rest on Broadway as we speak, fierce and ferocious.
Tom Francis (middle holding digicam) and the ensemble of ‘Sundown Blvd.‘
Marc Brenner
From the beginning, Lloyd stakes his declare on the fabric, taking away the unique staging’s showy corpse-in-a-pool impact to current our drowned hero Joe merely unzipping himself from a physique bag that we hadn’t even observed earlier than. Initially we could be fooled into pondering we’re about to see a rehash of the compelling theatrical concepts the director introduced so properly in his presentation of Betrayal with Tom Hiddleston in 2019 and A Doll’s Home starring Jessica Chastain in 2023. Stark lightings? Verify. Celeb casting? Verify. Chilly and crystalline visuals. Double test. In actual fact, Blvd. begins with extra fog than a San Francisco daybreak, the solid largely in angular silhouettes due to side-of-the-stage klieg-like lights.
However a couple of minutes in, with crashes of sound and light-weight and shade and the scrolling of movie-style credit, Lloyd indicators that the minimalism of his different productions shall be augmented with here-and-there flashes of theatrical derring-do that units Blvd. fairly aside. True, he’s borrowing the hand-held digicam machine we’ve seen in current productions of West Facet Story and Community – each from director Ivo van Hove – however Blvd. one-ups these productions each in execution and objective. One second of Scherzinger’s narcissistic silent-star has-been Norma Desmond upstaging her costars for a greater digicam angle tells us just about all we’ll have to know concerning the long-ago-faded Hollywood has-been.
Other than the solid and all that fantastically lit fog, the Blvd. stage has nearly nothing by the use of set furnishings. There’s a big horizontal display that hovers, ceiling-like, over the stage, tilting vertically when a backdrop is required to bear the movie-like close-ups of a determined wanting Norma or sad-faced Joe (Tom Francis, boyish and cynical and Scherzinger’s equal each step of the best way), the penniless screenwriter taken in by the older star beneath the guise of script-doctoring a comeback challenge that Norma believes shall be her return to the Hollywood A-list.
The plot factors of the story are so acquainted as to have change into considered one of Hollywood’s foundational tales of itself: As soon as ensconced in Norma’s decaying Sundown Boulevard mansion, Joe finds the money seize arduous to surrender, to not point out the pity he feels for this used-up human being who deserves higher. Norma, for her half, is a monster, aside from when she isn’t, when the tyrannical facade slips simply sufficient to disclose the attractive, guileless and dream-filled 16-year-old starlet that made the Hollywood that made her. There wouldn’t be a Paramount if not for her, she says, standing in for all of the younger expertise upon which an business and a metropolis was constructed earlier than being tossed into reminiscence’s gutter.
(L to R) Nicole Scherzinger as ‘Norma Desmond’ and Hannah Yun Chamberlain as ‘Younger Norma’
Marc Brenner
And whereas some have criticized the beautiful 46-year-old Scherzinger’s casting as Hollywood’s most well-known tossed-aside star this facet of Child Jane Hudson, the previous Pussycat Doll’s presence makes Wilder’s unique level all of the extra forcefully: When these on-stage cameras zoom in for cruel close-ups, silently evaluating the outcomes side-by-side on the display with the a lot youthful actress (Hannah Yun Chamberlain) enjoying Norma in her youth, the impact underscores simply how stringent and misogynistic and insane Hollywood’s – and society’s – codes of magnificence really are.
Whereas Joe is relieved to have a spot to dodge collectors, he feels the guilt of a saved man and a true-love eager for Betty (a contemporary Grace Hodgett Younger), the younger Hollywood hopeful with whom he’s undertaken a screenwriting challenge. She occurs to be the girlfriend of Joe’s greatest buddy Artie (Diego Andres Rodriguez), yet one more supply of guilt and angst to issue into the macabre horror of Joe’s “dwelling” life.
Whereas Blvd.‘s guide and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton stay kind of devoted to Wilder’s film, Webber’s rating tends towards a melodrama not solely in line with the movie’s darkish comedic parts. The dichotomy was clearly evident within the unique stagings of Sundown Blvd., with elaborate units that featured, for instance, a really very grand staircase down which a turbaned Patti LuPone or Betty Buckley or Glenn Shut or Elaine Paige would sweep, an over-the-topness that, whereas definitely not with out attraction, added one other layer of camp to a musical that was already susceptible to it.
The one turban in view throughout Lloyd’s manufacturing is seen in a fast glimpse throughout a outstanding backstage tour that opens the second act of the manufacturing, as Joe, or slightly Tom Francis, leaves his dressing room (the place Wilder’s Sundown Boulevard is enjoying on a bit TV) and makes his manner downstairs and out to the road, stopping to say howdy to his solid mates (the superb David Thaxton, as Max, has a Pussycat Dolls poster in his room, a nod to Scherzinger’s resume, and somebody in an impossibly phony chimp costume is standing round for an entrance he’ll by no means make on this manufacturing. (A chimp? If you already know you already know.)
(Projected onto the Display screen L to R): Nicole Scherzinger, Hannah Yun Chamberlain, with Tom Francis (seated)
Marc Brenner
Francis, all of the whereas, is singing the musical’s title track, at the same time as he makes his manner down forty fourth Road previous the marquees of different Broadway productions and eventually again to his personal theater, his each transfer and expression having been seize by digicam and projected onto the display earlier than our personal eyes. When he lastly takes the stage, a really nonetheless Norma waits for him.
The entire section is finished as a single monitoring shot (courtesy ensemble member and digicam operator Shayna McPherson) and it’s a outstanding coup de theatre, even when we’ve got seen it, or one thing related (and lesser) in different productions. And right here, it’s not even probably the most thrilling second of the present: That comes earlier, when Scherzinger, her straight hair hanging lengthy, her solely costume the flimsy black slip she’ll put on via the whole manufacturing, stands close to the sting of the stage to belt out the musical’s greatest track – “With One Look” – a vocal tour de power that comes properly earlier than intermission and, on the reviewed efficiency, had a roaring viewers on its ft.
The primary of a number of showstoppers, “With One Look” not solely shows Scherzinger’s revelatory vocal expertise, however the sensible contributions of Lloyd’s wonderful inventive crew. Soutra Gilmour’s set and costume design – the solid is attired in combine and match black and white costumes that recommend no specific period, maybe a bit too coyly – whereas Fabian Aloise’s choreography combines modern dance with the vaguely avant garde motion that has Norma posing at jutting, sharp angles calling to thoughts the weird imagery of a James Whale movie. Jack Knowles (lighting design, excellent), Adam Fisher (sound design, wonderful), Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom (video design and cinematography, flawless), and Cheryl Thomas (hair and make-up design, fantastic) are in peak kind all through.
Francis and Scherzinger
Marc Brenner
And at last, a observe on Lloyd Webber’s rating. With two unique numbers lower from the revival – “The Woman’s Paying” and “Everlasting Youth Is Value a Little Struggling,” neither a terrific loss – this visually stripped-down (although not precisely to say simplified) staging does what the perfect of New York’s Metropolis Middle’s Encores! productions have at all times performed: Take away litter, visible and aural, to permit the music to be heard with contemporary ears. Lloyd Webber’s Sundown Blvd. advantages tremendously from the method. “With One Look,” “As If We By no means Mentioned Goodbye,” “The Excellent Yr,” “The Best Star of All,” “New Methods To Dream” and the title track have by no means wanted defending, however the present revival, with musical course and supervision by Alan Williams, polishes even the extra unexceptional numbers of the rating – Each Film’s a Circus, Give up, The Excellent Yr – into small gems.
Spoiler alerts in all probability aren’t crucial for a story that’s been round for 74 years, and Joe’s emergence from that physique bag on the present’s starting go away nothing to the creativeness, however don’t be fooled into pondering Lloyd and his superlative Sundown Blvd. haven’t any surprises left. Wilder’s movie, for all its offbeat humor and quotable zingers, was at all times concerning the ugliness of Hollywood and the monstrous cruelty of an business that drains its gamers like a vampire does its victims. We will solely think about how tickled Wilder might need been if given the possibility to see the pink smears all around the blacks and whites and victims of Lloyd’s revival.
Title: Sundown Blvd.
Venue: Broadway’s St. James Theatre
Director: Jamie Lloyd
E-book and Lyrics: Don Black and Christopher Hampton
Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Solid: Nicole Scherzinger, Tom Francis, Grace Hodgett Younger, David Thaxton, with Olivia Lacie Andrews, Brandon Mel Borkowsky, Shavey Brown, Hannah Yun Chamberlain, Cydney Clark, Raúl Contreras, Tyler Davis, E.J. Hamilton, Sydney Jones, Emma Lloyd, Pierre Marais, Shayna McPherson, Jimin Moon, Justice Moore, Drew Redington, Diego Andres Rodriguez. Mandy Gonzalez will visitor star as ‘Norma Desmond’ at sure choose performances.
Working time: 2 hr 30 min (together with intermission)
