Glenn Close and Michael Xavier in the Broadway revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard.” | JOAN MARCUS
There really is only word to describe the revival of “Sunset Boulevard” now on Broadway: glorious. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sprawling musical adaptation of the Billy Wilder movie has always been larger than life, as befits the legendary Hollywood it attempts to portray. Yet under Lonny Price’s brilliant direction, the musical both maintains its epic scope and becomes a heartbreaking, human-scaled story of longing and loss, a mound of ashes beneath a heavy dusting of glitter.
In telling the tale of faded, silent film star Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis, the jaded, failing writer who becomes her lover, Price draws so much depth and dimension out of the characters that one can’t help rooting for them, even as they spiral toward inevitable destruction. The original production was overwhelming and bordered on Grand Guignol. Norma was a macabre curiosity, a grotesque, and Joe was callous and opportunistic. In this production, the two are tragic heroes, done in by desperation, denial, and the ache to fit into a world that doesn’t want or care about them.
In many respects, this is a “Sunset Boulevard” for our celebrity-besotted time, where the faces of the famous change almost as quickly as the covers of the magazines and even among ordinary people notoriety in social media and incessant validation are obsessively pursued. On another level, it’s also a chilling reminder that time can be cruel for those who live in denial. We relate to Norma because we can identify with her feelings of loss, disorientation, and bafflement at life. When presented with operatic drama, all of this is thrillingly cathartic.
A huge musical and an intimate one-man show both go straight for the heart
From the opening moments, one is swept into the production. The on-stage, 40-piece orchestra recalls some of the grandest movie music of all time. Lloyd Webber’s now classic score has never sounded better, nor has it ever made more sense as homage to the scores of movie greats like Max Steiner.
And then there’s the cast. Glenn Close gives the performance of a lifetime as Norma. She won a Tony for her original portrayal of Norma, and it’s a safe bet she could walk away with the award again. Yet 24 years after I first saw her in the role in Los Angeles, Close inhabits the role in a very different way. Her Norma now is more complex and clearly conflicted, manic almost. At times girlish and at others more of a gorgon, there is an inner fragility now that makes her sympathetic. When she returns to the studio thinking she’s about to resume her career, the conflicting emotions she’s feeling are palpable. At that moment of excitement and vulnerability, she sings, “As If We Never Said Goodbye.” It stops the show because Close is so brilliant at taking us with her on this emotional journey.
Michael Xavier gives a similarly nuanced performance as Joe Gillis, bitter yet hopeful and driven. Xavier has a wonderful voice and is every bit a match for Close. Fred Johanson as Max, Norma’s first husband and now her companion servant, is spectacular. He has an impeccable bass voice, and he beautifully underplays Max’s devotion to Norma. Siobhan Dillon is excellent as Betty Shaeffer, a writer who almost saves Joe.
At the end of the show, as Norma descends into madness, she reverts to the kewpie doll performance that she would have given mugging for the screen three decades earlier in her early 20s. It is creepy wonderful and, like everything in this production, wonderfully detailed and rendered. It is awe-inspiring to be in the presence of so much, as Norma calls it, “magic in the making.”
Geoff Sobelle in his one-man show, “The Object Lesson,” at New York Theatre Workshop through March 19. | JOAN MARCUS
Are we defined by our stuff? Heaven knows, many of us have much too much of it. Packed in boxes, hidden away, gathering dust and fading from memory, the detritus of a lifetime accumulates around us. Why do we keep what we keep? What is its meaning? And what does it mean to unearth things we’ve kept for decades? These questions and more about the stuff in our lives are likely to flood through the audience at “The Object Lesson,” a beautiful and poignant meditation on the power of things in our life.
Created by actor and illusionist Geoff Sobelle, the piece takes us through the life of a kind of an everyman who unearths things from his past, some forgotten, some prompting memories. Sobelle is an accomplished performer who leads us through his discoveries and ultimately, in a bravura finale, tells the entire story of a life through objects pulled from a single box that appears to contain it all. The emotional impact is as profound as the illusion is spellbinding.
As impressive as Sobelle is, the power of the piece is amplified by the scenic designs and installation by Steven Dufala. The audience is invited in early, to wander around, pick through the boxes, and discover things from old letters to discarded sports trophies to an old toothbrush among Christmas ornaments and socks. It is at once familiar (who doesn’t have boxes of random junk?) and alien (it isn’t your junk). In time, you find a box labeled “seat,” and the show begins as Sobelle wanders through the stacks of clutter and the show follows him around the cavernous, over-stuffed space.
And of course, one can’t help wondering what a stranger would think going through your stuff, speculating as to why you might have kept something or what something else was. Our things may not define us, but they are part of us, and what we save is a record of our lives, perhaps only known to us, but that may be all that matters.
SUNSET BOULEVARD | Palace Theater, 1564 Broadway at W. 47th St. | Wed., Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m.; Thu. at 7 p.m.; Wed., Sat. at 2 p.m.; Sun. at 3 p.m. | $65-$199 at ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000 | Two hrs., 45 mins., one intermission
THE OBJECT LESSON | New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. Fourth St., btwn. Bowery & Second Ave. | Through Mar. 19: Tue.-Wed. at 7 p.m.; Thu.-Sat. at 8 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. at 2 p.m. | $69 at nytw.org or 212-460-5475 | One hr., 40 mins., with no intermission
