The revival of 'Sunset Blvd.' in one word: DARK

The atmosphere is set from the moment you enter the St. James Theatre where British director Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Andrew Lloyd Webbers’ Sunset Blvd. opened last night.  The house lights were so dim I couldn’t read the Playbill.  Even before the first note from the orchestra, the theme of darkness was pervasive. 

Banking on the success of his Olivier Award-winning London production earlier this year, Lloyd is taking the chance that American audiences will appreciate two and a half hours of bleakness.  In his desire to tap into the grim 1950 film noir of the same title, Lloyd recreates that sensibility as much as possible.  Past Broadway productions have not been this stark and dark. I saw the 2017 revival with Glenn Close, who also starred in the original 1994 Broadway production, but it was much more subtle and so not as depressing. 

Soutra Gilmour’s costumes are all black and white.  In the first act the chorus of dancers wear black T-shirts except for a couple of white ones, black pants and black sneakers. They look as if they’ve stepped out of a Gap ad.  The attire is an appropriate match for Fabian Aloise’s athletic choreography.  

In the second act the women wear black slip dresses although they fade into the background in comparison to the ultimate wearer of a black slip dress, Nicole Scherzinger as Norma Desmond, the former Hollywood silent film star now living in obscurity in her mansion with her ever-attentive manservant, Max (Olivier nominee David Thaxton).  Railing thin with straight shiny black hair that falls past her shoulders, the Olivier Award winner and Grammy nominee is the self-involved ice queen devoid of any humanity.  Her dancer’s body, in that clinging black dress for the entire show, is as flexible as rubber.  She is, as she should be, always the center of attention whether it’s as her fully dimensional self or one of the distracting projections.

Gilmour is also credited as scenic designer but not one speck of scenery is used.  It’s just the big, black stage and designer Jack Knowles’ appropriately joyless lighting and lots of smoke and fog. Not one drop of color appears until the final blood-streaked scene.  OK, we get the idea of a black and while film but just in case someone doesn’t, the actors appear in film projections behind them, some reaching as high as the proscenium.  It’s effectively eerie but overdone.  Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom provide the video design and cinematography.

I did like their filming of Joe Gillis (Oliver winner Tom Frances), the down-on-his-luck screenwriter who ends up moving into Desmond’s mansion to write a script to bring about her “return” to Hollywood (she hates the term “come back”).  In a scene I don’t understand but enjoyed, Gillis is filmed, in black and white, of course, backstage in his dressing room, then walking through the Theatre District followed by the dancers and stared at by the mingled tourists and theatergoers.

The scenes without the filming and without the chorus were the most effective for me, thanks to Max who is the only one who truly loves Desmond.  With the three of them alone on the black stage and a spotlight focus on them -- Desmond in the middle with the men on either side of her -- he reveals that he is her first of many husbands and that he has been sending the fan mail that she is so proud to still be receiving and that he faked a call from Paramount Studios asking her to make a new film.  “I made her a star and I will not let her be destroyed,” he sings.  He’s a big bruiser of a man but he’s the heart of the show.

Were I not a Drama Desk voter I would have happily passed on seeing this show again.  The anxiety of our close election is too upsetting.  We need a little Jerry Herman, right this very minute.  Mame, please.