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Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard”

Brings Hollywood Babylon to Signature Theatre

Jordan Wright
December 20, 2010
Special to Alexandria Times

Florence Lacey (as Norma Desmond) discusses her opus screenplay of Salomé with D.B. Bonds (Joe Gillis) in Sunset Boulevard. At Virginia’s Signature Theatre through February 13, 2011. Photo: Scott Suchman

Florence Lacey (as Norma Desmond) discusses her opus screenplay of Salomé with D.B. Bonds (Joe Gillis) in Sunset Boulevard. At Virginia’s Signature Theatre through February 13, 2011. Photo: Scott Suchman

Ah, the glory days of Hollywood and the all-powerful studio star system where actors and actresses (yes, they used the feminine designation then) were promoted, protected and molly-coddled. Lavish cars were at their disposal, restaurants catered to their every whim and movie magazines were full of 8×10 retouched photos of their glamorous and scandal-free lives. The one-foot-on-the-floor Hays rules were firmly in place and “commies” were found in Russia.

Set in that most golden of eras for the film industry, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical interpretation of the 1950 film, “Sunset Boulevard”, mirrors how the lives of its greatest stars could descend into an unrelenting maelstrom when the studios dropped them.

The plot centers around Norma Desmond an aging, washed-up actress cloistered in her decaying mansion on Sunset Boulevard with only her devoted butler Max to attend to her needs. Ed Dixon, who turns in a riveting version of Max as the grisly self-appointed “keeper of the flame”, embodies the spectral watchdog whose adoration of Norma and his dominion over her faded career, haunt her every move.

Ed Dixon plays servant, Max in Sunset Boulevard. At Virginia’s Signature Theatre through February 13, 2011. Photo: Chris Mueller.

Ed Dixon plays servant, Max in Sunset Boulevard. At Virginia’s Signature Theatre through February 13, 2011. Photo: Chris Mueller.

Desmond believes that a script she has written for herself will revive her career and return her to her adoring fans. “With one look I’ll be me, ” she asserts. Enter Joe Gillis, played by D. B. Bonds who brings a more relaxed yet sanguine approach to the role than did actor William Holden in the film version. Gillis is an out of work film hack with a repo’ed car and nothing to show for a few successful screenplays. He’s been around the block and knows when he gets the brush off. “I only wish I could help. This town is dead!” the studio tells him.

With his last script rebuffed he crumbles. “Get off your high horse!” Betty, the studio head’s secretary, played winningly by Susan Derry, tells him, “Writers with pride don’t live in LA.” She vows to help him rewrite the rejected script in order to get noticed.

Big productions deserve live music and the first thing that grabs you around the throat is the huge sound of the scrim-secluded 20-member orchestra who prepare the scene for an electrifying choreography of soundmen, lighting crew and exotic dancers “on set” for the all-powerful Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille. It is powerful, it is flashy, and it dramatizes the third-tier men and women who labor behind the scenes to bring cinematic magic to the screen.

Webber’s version clings close to the original with a dialogue-heavy musical that revisits the film’s oft-quoted lines from Desmond. “All you wonderful people out there in the dark.” “And now Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” and “It’s a return, not a comeback.”

Musically the biggest numbers are from Norma with, “With Just one Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye” covered long ago by Barbra Streisand and Kiri TeKanawa. But there are some oddly placed and irritatingly sing-songy exchanges between the smitten Betty and her love-target, Joe, who seems clueless to her amorous overtures until Act Two. Is he a poor sap or a gigolo in thrall to two clingy tearful women? …one an over-the-hill cougar…the other an opportunist. In a duet Betty sings, “I think he’s confused.” to Joe’s, “I thought I had everything in place.” There are plenty of clichés to go around in this melodrama and each cast member has their fair share.

The film version has always been a camp classic, a forerunner of the horror genre typified by “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” that starred Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. In the same vein the role of Norma Desmond is a delicate balance of pathos and kitschy parody that must soften the two elements in order to be believable and sympathetic. The role calls for a great deal of subtlety and gravitas to pull it off.

I longed to tell you I found it here, yet saw it only in glimpses in Florence Lacey’s feathery light portrayal. And though she threads the needle of Norma’s psychotic delusions, I felt she fell short of the bravura necessary to own the role and dominate the dynamic.

Musically this is not one of Webber’s catchiest and most tuneful. Perhaps that is why actress Glenn Close’s New York/LA Norma could come off so well. Yet this “Sunset Boulevard” is a brave rendition handily aided by Set Designer Daniel Conway’s big stage sensibility and elegant style.

www.signature-theatre.org

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