In Jamie Lloyd’s dazzling new adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, it’s not just Norma Desmond who’s ready for her closeup. Onstage cameras stalk Norma, projecting her image onto the vertiginously slanted, gargantuan screen at the back of the stage. But they also follow the doomed screenwriter Joe, his love interest Betty, Norma’s faithful factotum Max—all the principals are given the full screen treatment in this production.
Former lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls Nicole Scherzinger makes a spectacular Broadway debut as the fading icon of the screen. The gorgeous Scherzinger may seem young for the role, but I found it quite a brilliant stroke to feature this fading celebrity who’s “only” 45 to portray the forgotten Norma Desmond. Scherzinger, after all, has been largely relegated to judging television talent shows since the Pussycat Dolls broke up in 2010.
And beautiful as she is, the closeups, often cruelly lit, are unforgiving. Scherzinger leans into the cruel lighting, reminding me at times of the aging Maria Callas, at others of Morticia Addams. And like a diva, she is inexorably drawn to the onstage cameras, pouting, twerking, constantly playing to them.
The use of onstage cameras is hardly a new device, particularly for anyone who has attended too many Ivo van Hove productions. In this case, though, Lloyd has chosen a technique perfectly suited for a world where a star hardly exists outside of the image she presents. (It’s striking that only Norma shows any awareness of the cameras’ presence.)
Alongside Jamie Lloyd’s signature style—no set, no props, no costumes, microphone headsets on actors who often speak to the audience rather than with one another—these cameras create a very meta experience, as though we are simultaneously watching a film of the very stage show we are attending. And not just any film, but a black and white film noir that only once shows a dramatic splash of color. (Spoiler: it’s blood red.)
Lloyd is increasingly bringing this style to shows that would seem to demand an entirely different aesthetic. It’s a very odd mix—Lloyd’s distancing affect and Lloyd Webber’s overripe melodrama—but it works here in unexpected ways.
Lloyd’s celebrated minimalism is not really minimal here. The characters have become literally larger than life, and the dramatic lighting and swirling fog create an ambience that obviates any need for an ornate mansion, a swimming pool, a luxurious antique car. (The fog machines really deserve their own ovation at the end.)
In fact, by replacing a traditional set and costumes with this dramatic and swirling fog, the show fully engages the audience’s imagination. In its surreal and larger-than-life presentation, the production demands that we participate in the story’s imagined reality.
But while the show is undoubtedly a thrilling experience, I found it surprisingly distant emotionally. The actors on stage tend to be overshadowed by their own projections, Scherzinger most obviously. But Tom Francis’s Joe is also hard to read in any normal human way. Francis is a handsome and charismatic actor whose muscular singing voice matches well with Scherzinger’s star-making performance. But what is he thinking? What, other than alienation, is he feeling? It’s never quite clear.
Instead, it’s the secondary characters—Betty, Artie, Max—who embody recognizable human beings capable of engaging our empathy. When their illusions are shattered in the second act, we completely believe in their pain. And, in a notable gesture, they each remove their microphones as they leave the stage in despair. Visible microphones looped over one ear are a constant in Jamie Lloyd productions. Removing one’s mic in this context powerfully signals a character’s hopelessness. Betty, Artie and Max all find themselves at an unbearable point in their story. Helpless, they can say no more.
Norma Desmond famously complains that she’s still big; the pictures got small. In this production, Jamie Lloyd has made both the pictures and the stage big again. Whether the scale he achieves here can engage our emotions in a meaningful way—well, I’m not completely convinced on this point. But whatever reservations I may have about it, this is a show I’ll remember with pleasure for a long time.
I haven’t seen any iteration of the play, nor listened to any of the music. But I understand it closely follows the script of the 1950 film, co-written by Billy Wilder and his long-time collaborator, Charles Brackett (with some contribution by a third writer). I’ve just finished reading the portions of Brackett’s diaries which cover the years of their collaboration.
I’ve always found the film difficult to like, both story and image. The idea to have Joe’s corpse narrate the tale was Wilder’s. It’s both brilliant and a variation of the narrative device he’d used in “Double Indemnity” (1944)—there a dying Fred MacMurray unfolds the story as a confession.
The film’s image quality is muted—–there were concerns that photographer John Seitz’s pallette was too dark. And since we know Joe is dead, his attraction to Betty is upfront hopeless for the audience. A side note: Paramount twigged that
the public wanted to see the actors Nancy Olson and William Holden together, so subsequently rushed them through three more films where they paired (one of which, “Union Station” is a nifty noirish crime story, but with the desired meet cute moments).
Lisa’s word on the overall effect is alienation. Close, I think, to my take—that Joe’s capitulation to being kept, plus a possible betrayal of his friend Artie, generates in him a self-loathing which creates the dominate tone. It’s just unpleasant, start to finish, and probably why I don’t rewatch the film and why I haven’t seen the musical.
A few additional bits: Wilder and Brackett thought Gloria Swanson tended to overact. They thought Holden’s voice in the narration was monotonous.
Indeed, the first choice for Joe was Montgomery Clift, not Holden, but he turned it down after a long flirtation with the role. Clift would have brought
a very different sensibility to Joe, probably unintended by the writers, but one which might have influenced today’s adaptors. Holden was stolid, unambiguously hetero. Clift had a different persona—shy, vulnerable, and a hint of sexual ambiguity. This may not have added much to the story, save perhaps to make the flirtation with Betty slightly less plausible (but we know already that it was doomed). According to Brackett’s diaries Clift was involved with an older woman
when he was offered the part, and it is has been speculated that she, a famous singer, talked him out of it because it hit too close to home.
Who knows, or indeed who cares? I doubt this cast change would alter my overall dislike of the film/story. But maybe I should give a listen to the music.
Interesting comments, Dana—and I’m sure you’re right that Montgomery Clift would have made for a very different film. I don’t know that you need to listen to the music. At least I’m not that impressed by Lloyd Webber’s music, nor are the lyrics, to put it generously, on Sondheim’s level.
With no swimming pool on this set, Jamie Lloyd hit on his own striking introduction of Joe’s corpse: the show begins with Joe unzipping his own body bag and stepping out onto the middle of the stage.