I LOVED this so much! A uniquely brilliant show!
It is a thrillingly theatrical piece about the power of the camera, and the power of the spotlight, about what it takes to be a star and what it means to lose it.
Nicole Scherzinger and Tom Francis are fabulous!
Spoilers follow. . .
Comments above have already reviewed WHAT happens splendidly, so I'll just focus on a few comments from the naysayers, and say why I love it:-
(1) Why are Tom Francis and the ensemble so sweaty, fraught and unhappy the entire time?
Picasso said of sculpture that it's already there, he just removes the bits that shouldn't be there. For me, Jamie Lloyd removes from the show all the superficial manners and politeness that disguises the truth of what's really going on, creating a heightened reality that is more vigorous and truthful than you normally see.
In reality, it's hard to meet a waiter in Los Angeles that is neither a writer nor an actor. That's not a knock on waiters, its just a reflection of how brutal show business is, how difficult it is to work in your chosen profession, let alone attain the status of a star.
So Lloyd brings on the ensemble like so many battle hardened West Side Story gang members, except it's worse than that, cos they are all battling on their own, without even a gang for back up.
It's a thrill to see so much pretension dropped, so much ego and fire;
(2) Why do the ensemble face the audience so much, instead of acting toward each other?
Lloyd's heightened reality is a theatrical one. Everybody in show business is battling for the audience's attention, and so of course, the actors face the audience they crave, us, and battle for our attention hard, dancing and singing their guts out.
One reason this show is so hard hitting and vigorous is the sheer honesty and intensity of that;
(3) How is Lloyd's Norma different from other Normas?
Lloyd's Norma comes on like the Bride of Frankenstein, once Scherzinger turns to face us. She is a great, gurning, grasping monster of an attention seeker, basking in the knowledge that she has in fact been a big star, unlike everyone else in the ensemble, and she is a creation of the audience, us, to whom she seeks to return.
Consequently, Scherzinger's performance is the opposite of the kind of naturalistic performance that usually wins awards. It is larger than life. It is heightened. It is craving. It is majestic.
In fact, of the Norma's I have seen, it's the closest performance to Gloria Swanson's own non-naturalistic performance in Billy Wilder's movie (and of course, Swanson was mother's milk to the role, having actually starred in silent films for DeMille). Wilder said that Norma is a "dethroned Queen" of the silent cinema, and she has those exaggerated, larger than life, silent film expressions and movements that make her seem so alien. Scherzinger is just like that, and her Times interview is a fantastic meta crossover of that larger-than-life character into real life lol.
(4) What's with all the Ivo Van Hove camera stuff?
Where previous Sunsets have been character pieces, showing us in detail the corrupted sausages that the Hollywood Dream Factory has produced, Jamie Lloyd aims bigger. He shows us the process of making the sausages. He uses the film technique of the camera closeup, and the parallel theatrical technique of the spotlight, to show us how stars are made. In fact, he actually makes and unmakes stars on stage, utilising the camera closeup and the theatrical spotlight, which is super-thrilling to see. Watch who is given closeup camera time, and who is given the spotlight, and you feel the constant power of those devices to drastically affect not only the focus of the story telling but also who is having their star raised and who lowered in the meta story.
(5) How does the great meta "Sunset Boulevard" set piece fit in?
Lloyd runs a meta-storyline, of how he himself is turning Tom Francis into a star, in parallel to the actual storyline, about how stardom has wrecked Norma's character.
The meta storyline actually begins at the very beginning, when the nobody, Tom Francis, steps out of a body bag, grabs a camera like the steering wheel of a car, and trains it on his own face to provide us with a massive star-making Tom Francis closeup.
Over this, Lloyd tells us that he is the power behind the throne, the DeMille of this theatrical production, writing on the big screen in giant letters "A Jamie Lloyd Production," and that he has chosen Tom Francis: "starring Tom Francis."
In the "Sunset Boulevard" setpiece, Joe Gillis ceases to exist, and Tom Francis becomes himself again, as do the entire ensemble. The heightened battle hardened reality of the story is dropped, the actors relax and get silly, one sniffing coke, one undressed, one smiling at Tom, Tom smiling back, one admiring the Pussycat Dolls lol, one drinking from a "Jamie Lloyd productions" cup, which is judiciously there to remind us that on stage, it is Lloyd not DeMille who is the starmaker. The actors are all obviously "themselves" now, in a meta way, so when Francis goes onto the Strand, the Strand is his very own version of Sunset Boulevard, his own theatrical Hollywood, where he yearns to be a star. He walks alongside us, on the street, in the cafes, and poses by Scherzinger's picture, acknowledging that she, not he, is the star. All the while, he sings Lloyd Webber's wistful masterpiece of a song for Joe Gillis, "Sunset Boulevard," but he is equally evidently singing metaphorically "The Strand, The Ruthless Strand, destination for the stony-hearted, everyone's forgotten how they started, here on The Strand."
And so when he bursts into the stage, we are presented with his ultimate star making moment: with Jamie Lloyd's blessing, Francis has been given everything he needs to be a star, the attention of the camera, in closeup, the title song, the meta moment, and now the rush of the stage spotlight and the rapture of the audience. Even as Francis becomes fully Gillis again, it is Francis who is the star of this moment, not Gillis. And that, I would argue, is utterly intentional: the Hollywood and West End Star Making Sausage Machine demonstrated so elegantly and dramatically and joyously.
(6) Why is DeMille's face in shadow, rather than seen?
Just as Lloyd's presence as meta starmaker is only acknowledged in assertive pre and post credit sequences and logos on coffee mugs, and Lloyd's face remains unseen and unknown (to most), so too is DeMille's presence as in-story starmaker of Norma Desmond appropriately equally shadowy and unknown. Lloyd and DeMille are gatekeepers of stardom, just as behind the scenes billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk are gatekeepers of political and social power.
Only the role of gatekeeper is important to Lloyd, as they are interchangeable in their function, regardless of the fact that DeMille and Lloyd may be benign, where Murdoch and Musk may be malign. All that matters is that attracting the attention of such gatekeepers is recognised as herculean.
As a real former star, Norma Desmond has passed through these gates, and will always be remembered and respected for that feat, even after being dethroned. This is why the shadowy silhouettes of the film crew seem to salute Scherzinger's Norma Desmond even as she cannot reclaim her stardom.
(7) Why does Scherzinger do roly polys and splits?
Although Norma Desmond cannot reclaim her star, Scherzinger can. The stage acrobatics are Scherzinger's assertion and reminder of her star status, in Lloyd's meta story, as is the picture of the Pussycat Dolls in the dressing room, and her picture on the poster outside the Savoy in the meta sequence. Such playful moments act as a meta reminder of who Scherzinger was and is, but also of what she wants to be, a stage star, playing to us, the audience. Her weapon will be Andrew Lloyd Webber's melodies, and she uses her astonishing pipes, in conjunction with the larger than life Norma Desmond persona, to create some absolutely edge of the seat stage moments.
Because the audience is the ultimate arbiter of who is and is not a star, capable of rejecting the power of gatekeepers like DeMille and Lloyd, ultimately Scherzinger and Francis are utterly alone up there.
From my perspective, both deliver roof raising performances, and do Lloyd proud. Francis is pure existential angst and sweaty moment to moment truth, and Scherzinger raises the ghost of Gloria Swanson's Bride of Frankenstein thirsty-for-life vitality and theatricality while blending it with such masterful modulated belting of Lloyd Webber's beautiful melodies, that this is for me, surely one of the must see shows of the year.
5 stars and I'm going again.
