British director Jamie Lloyd really, really wants you to know that he’s responsible for the staging of the new revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1993 musical Sunset Boulevard, newly arrived on Broadway after a hit London engagement. The production by “The Jamie Lloyd Company” features both opening and post-performance credits unspooled on a giant screen. And in one of the show’s many meta-theatrical touches, a coffee mug emblazoned with the company’s logo is prominently displayed. Forget directing: what Lloyd is really a master of is self-promotional branding.
The production starring former Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger is bound to prove divisive, with purists howling at the radically stylized, minimalist reinterpretation and others likely to be thrilled by the undeniably striking, full-throttle staging. This critic is firmly in the former camp, even while admitting that the show is wildly entertaining on its own bizarre terms. Revise your expectations accordingly and you’ll have a good time, as long as you don’t expect to actually see, you know, Sunset Boulevard.
Indeed, those unfamiliar with the musical or Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film starring Gloria Swanson are likely to be confused by this version which renders the noir-like narrative in, to say the least, abstract terms. Although an opening graphic informs us that the setting is 1949, most of the ensemble wear athletic leisurewear as if fitting in the performance between workout sessions. Unlike the massive sets of the original production which depicted, among other things, former movie star Norma Desmond’s baroque Hollywood mansion, Soutra Gilmour’s set design consists of little more than the occasional chair. (Not that you’ll be able to even see those considering how much stage fog is unleashed.)
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
And don’t even try to figure out the timeline: Scherzinger, at age 46, seems much too young for the role (I know, Swanson was only a few years older, but still), and seems roughly the same age as David Thaxton, who plays her loyal manservant and (spoiler alert) former director Max Von Mayerling. And unlike the grotesque pairing of Swanson and William Holden in the film, the romance between her and young screenwriter Joe Gillis (Tom Francis, who won an Olivier Award for his performance) seems all too natural, especially with the lithe Scherzinger parading around the stage clad only in a black slip.
Like his fellow iconoclastic director Ivo van Hove, Lloyd loves incorporating filmed elements into his productions, with this staging featuring so many video segments, projected on that aforementioned giant screen, that it’s surprising the concession stand doesn’t sell popcorn. Now, with Sunset Boulevard it makes a certain kind of sense considering the subject matter and milieu. But as usual Lloyd drives the concept into the ground (literally, during a car race sequence featuring a giant close-up of Francis’ sweaty face) and Scherzinger playing so much to the camera that the whole show might as well be on TikTok. You wonder why Lloyd insists on working in the theater if what he really wants to be, like all of us, a movie director.
The staging reveals Lloyd working hard, oh so hard, to impress us with his ingenuity, including his by-now familiar schtick of having the performers address their dialogue not to each other but directly to the audience. That “Hey, I’m directing here!” approach is most strikingly demonstrated in the title number in which we first see live video footage of Francis walking around backstage as his fellow castmates engage in such behavior as discreetly snorting coke, posing with a life-size cut-out of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and, in Scherzinger’s case, writing the phrase “Mad About the Boy” in red lipstick on her dressing room mirror. Then he walks out of the theater onto 44th Street and dramatically performs the song, surrounded by menacing looking bodyguards and NYPD officers (your tax dollars at work!) as New Yorkers and tourists whip out their cell phones to film the bizarre spectacle. It’s an impressive feat of logistics and an undeniable coup de théâtre, but what the hell it has to do with Sunset Boulevard is anybody’s guess. But then, the same can be said about most of the proceedings.
All of that said, the evening is certainly not boring. You can’t take your eyes off Scherzinger, miscast as she is, even if her performance at times makes kabuki theater look subtle. She plays nearly every scene like Swanson’s climactic “I’m ready for my close-up” moment in the film, and though the overall effect ultimately proves exhausting (for both performer and audience) she’s hypnotic from first moment to last. And she sings the hell out of the two showstoppers “With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” even with their tempos slowed down to a dirge.
Francis, whose hunkiness is demonstrated by his frequently stripping down to black boxer briefs, delivers a solid supporting turn even if he’s been directed to recite his dialogue in as much of a monotone as possible. Thaxton proves a compellingly menacing Max, albeit one who frequently gets laughs with his deadpan facial expressions and line readings, while Grace Hodgett Young makes for a charming Betty Schaefer even if her role in this revised rendition doesn’t really make any sense.
The show, which has cut a few of the numbers and features rewritten lyrics to others, is so relentlessly iconoclastic that it seems to exist only its own rarified universe. Evaluating it as a production of Sunset Boulevard seems beside the point, since Lloyd only seems concerned with the material insofar as he can put his own stamp on it.
Sunset Blvd. opened October 20, 2024 at the St. James Theatre. Tickets and information: sunsetblvdbroadway.com
