Theater fans love to ask the question, “If there were a time machine, what would you go back and see?”
Let’s ask the question another way: “If there were a time machine, what would you go forward to see?”
My choice: Nicole Scherzinger in SUNSET BLVD. in 2048.
She’ll be 70 then, as opposed to 46 now. But these days at the St. James Theatre, Scherzinger certainly doesn’t even look as if she’s in her mid-forties. The star is still gloriously beautiful, thin, and extraordinarily limber.
Those qualities, however, have nothing to do with Norma Desmond, the faded movie star who was forced out of films decades earlier.
Gloria Swanson was ideal for Norma in the classic 1950 film. From 1915 to 1928, Swanson made an even 50 silent movies in a mere 13 years. Granted, they were short ones, for film was then just finding its way. But Swanson could have been speaking for herself as much as for Norma when she uttered the line, “Without me, there wouldn’t be any Paramount Studio.”
However, in the 21 years between 1929 and 1950, Swanson only appeared in eight features and one short subject. So, before her comeback (or return, if you will) in SUNSET BOULEVARD, she might well have heard a passerby say, “Sorry! I thought you were Whoo-sis. Whatever happened to her?”
We know that Hollywood has often cast aside actresses who reach their forties. But many actresses who still retained their beauty stayed in the game. (Exhibit A: Elizabeth Taylor.) Scherzinger fits the description. Her dazzling looks and style would have kept her in pictures.
SUNSET’s three screenwriters and, presumably, co-librettists-lyricists Don Black and Christopher Hampton, initially envisioned someone who appeared older. During Glenn Close’s last run in the role, she marked her 70th birthday. True, when she first brought the show to Broadway in 1994, she was merely a year older than Scherzinger is now. Still, on both occasions, Close was made up to look decrepit, and played Norma with some age on her. Scherzinger is still so full of life that if a company were planning an industrial for jumping beans, she’d be its star, too.
This is a problem, for a major part of the story is that aging Norma comes to love Joe Gillis (an acceptable Tom Francis) many years her junior. He’s not attracted to her, but she’s willing to keep him, and he needs to be kept. Because he’s a writer with far fewer prospects than debts – and she has a script that she mistakenly feels will mark her great renaissance – he’ll take on the job massaging both her and her screenplay.
That Scherzinger seems too young may spur a rebuttal: “These days, isn’t 70 the new 50? If so, isn’t Scherzinger age appropriate?” However, one of the film’s most famous lines – “There’s nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you try to be 25” – has been downsized to 40. A 15-year difference simply isn’t as dramatic as a 25-year gulf.
Besides, the time frame hasn’t been updated. One of the first things we see is “1949” projected onto the back wall. The musical must be kept in the way-back-when, for we’re dealing with a woman who made silent films.
At least the audience can see that lit-up number. Jack Knowles’ lighting is often so dim that those who are seated in the second balcony will at many times be able to make out very, very little.
There’s one definite nod to the past. Director Jamie Lloyd has ordered everything on stage to be black, white and grey to suggest the original film. Aside from that, Lloyd has rarely been true to 1949.
One scene shows Joe’s collaborator Betty Schaefer (the excellent Grace Hodgett Young) typing their script on a laptop. You don’t have to Google to learn that such a device wasn’t around then. Couldn’t a typewriter have been found in one of Manhattan’s many thrift shops?
Mistaken as the laptop is, it’s at least a visual prop in a production that almost always dispenses with them. When Norma brings Joe her script of her “very important picture,” she isn’t holding a single page. So, Lloyd loses the laugh when Joe says her massive tome “looks like six very important pictures.”
Other anachronisms: Soutra Gilmour has costumed executive Mr. Sheldrake in too-casual and too-shabby clothes for a 1949 Hollywood bigwig who’d wear a suit. Costumes often help us define a character; Gilmour’s don’t.
Hair styles are off, too. Scherzinger has a long flowing straight black hair. It reaches halfway down her back and suggests a Native American style that no Caucasian woman wore in those days.
When SUNSET BOULEVARD arrived on our shores 30 years ago, many groused that it was overproduced. David Richards in The New York Times started his review with “The mansion has landed,” for indeed the interior of Desmond’s digs did rise and fall to allow scenes set elsewhere to be played below.
But what’s wrong with an impressive set? What’s on stage now could be packed into a modest U-Haul.
Note, too, that the word BOULEVARD, used in the official title of previous productions, has been abbreviated to BLVD. Perhaps it’s a metaphor that what you get is 4/9ths of what you could be getting.
Lloyd obviously wanted a deconstruction, but he’s metaphorically used a wrecking ball and plutonium to create a fever dream.
Talk about Brecht’s Theory of Alienation. Most of the time – nay, virtually all the time – performers stand next to each other, almost as close as the Hilton Sisters, stare out fourth wall, and deliver their lines to the audience without looking at each other. This gets the show off to a jarring start, and those who don’t know the property will initially find the story very difficult to understand.
At one point, Norma is facing fourth-wall while having a conversation with Joe, who is many feet away from her. That would be bad enough, but he’s facing the back wall. How does this help the show?
(Answer: It doesn’t.)
This, however, seems to be part of Lloyd’s concept, for Joe and Betty do face each other in most of their scenes, the majority of which have cameramen surrounding them so that their images can be projected on that screen. Perhaps this is Lloyd’s way of saying that these two were fated to be mated.
(To be fair, also facing each other, albeit unprojected, are Max, Norma’s former director and current servant, and the studio assistant who’s been trying to reach Norma for reasons that have nothing to do with her script.)
During intermission, one of the cameramen does yeoman duty. He must follow Joe who sings the title song, goes into the wings, climbs down the many stairs, and saunters into the street. The cinematographer keeps the camera on Joe as he walks down West 44th about as far as Sardi’s, then crosses over to the Shubert, where he’s joined by ensemble members prior to all return to the theater.
Why are they singing about Sunset Boulevard when they’re 2,812 miles away from it? This rainbow tour also keeps us from concentrating on the lyrics (although some wags will say that’s a good thing).
Act Two has Norma hope (or even expect) to interest her former director and champion, the legendary Cecil B. DeMille, in her revamped screenplay. To this point she’s solely worn a plain black dress, so we might assume that she’d don a new outfit for this important meeting. But no, Scherzinger never changes her costume. The production has also saved on the price of shoes, for she’s always barefoot, too.
Just as visually important is the vintage car which she still owns. That vehicle will figure prominently into the plot, and its splendor would have been welcomed here.
It never appears.
Once Norma arrives, a “quite elderly electrician,” as the script describes him, recognizes her and says, “Let’s get a look at you!” As the spotlight reveals all, previous Normas have shown pain but remained brave despite knowing that their deterioration is being revealed.
Not Scherzinger. Given how she looks, who can blame her? But that’s not the point that the moment is trying tom make.
As for DeMille, he’s solely represented by a silhouette of an enormous head projected onto a stage-filling sheet. This makes him rather resemble the title character of THE MUMMY.
For the final scene, Max says, “Madame, the cameras have arrived.” But now, after we’ve seen cameras permeate the stage for so much of the performance, now when they’re actually called for, they’re nowhere to be found.
Of course, if there were a 2048 revival, expecting Scherzinger to retain the magnificent voice she now displays would seem unrealistic. What she delivers now on Norma’s two great Andrew Lloyd Webber melodies – “With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye” – is extraordinarily impressive. The latter even got her a titanic burst of mid-song applause, “Whoos!” and a standing ovation while she was holding a note for an inordinately long time.
On the other hand, as Max, an also-too-young David Thaxton does the same with a note but received silence from the crowd. How greatly disappointed he must have been.
Here’s also hoping that in 2048 Scherzinger gets a director who doesn’t make her do one of the oldest and lamest tricks in theater history. In order to get Joe to do what she wants, Norma begins to cry. Once Joe gives in, she immediately stops, turns, perks up and makes clear that she was never crying in the first place.
Here’s a warning to those who have an aversion to theatrical smoke. They’ll find it wafting through the house as soon as they enter the auditorium. More than one theatergoer, while waiting for the show to begin, was heard to say, “Is this place on fire?”
No, but there’s quite a bit more stage smoke once the curtain is raised. For some, this will be a metaphor for a musical that has been horribly torched. Norma says of her script, “I won’t have it butchered,” and yet some will feel that SUNSET BLVD. has been. With so little in production values, let’s call it a glorified concert, but, to be fair, from the wild reaction throughout and at the curtain call, many found it a glorious one.
