By Greg Evans, October 20, 2024
Nicole Scherzinger as ‘Norma Desmond’ in ‘Sunset Blvd.’ photo by Marc Brenner
All that madness in Gloria Swanson’s eyes at the end of Billy Wilder’s 1950 masterpiece Sunset Boulevard is amplified to breathtaking lengths in Jamie Lloyd‘s commanding and gorgeous renovation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1993 musical Sunset Blvd. With a career-expanding performance that redefines the one-time Dancing With The Stars competitor Nicole Scherzinger as thoroughly as Lloyd’s staging does Lloyd Webber’s musical, the revival opening tonight at Broadway‘s St. James Theatre is a stunner, stark always, funny sometimes and ultimately terrifying.
The musical – which, like the film, has heretofore been Sunset Boulevard but is now stylized with Blvd.; to avoid confusion, I’ll refer to the stage show, past and present iterations, with the abbreviation – has always been something of an also-ran in the Lloyd Webber oeuvre, known mostly for two, three, maybe four of its best songs, a big ol’ staircase and the stinging behind-the-scenes feud between the composer and his original star Patti LuPone way back in the day.
The current revival, if it does nothing else, should put the show’s mixed reputation to rest. With its silent movie-style black & white color scheme and heavy-shadowed expressionistic sculpting, Sunset Blvd. is quite unlike anything else on Broadway today, fierce and ferocious.
