Why did SUNSET BOULEVARD fail?- Page 3

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 1:35am

Hey, best12bars, in the revamped tour directed by Susan Schulman starring Petula Clark, they removed a lot of the music from the Joe and Betty scenes and turned the "Boy meets Girl" song into dialogue. I found it much less annoying than the song.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 7:47am

I'll never forget that Petula Clark performance. It remains one of the most grandly miscalculated performances I've ever seen.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 9:20am

It also didn't really help that Really Useful had to pay large settlements to both LuPone and Faye Dunaway, did it?

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 9:43am

"It also didn't really help that Really Useful had to pay large settlements to both LuPone and Faye Dunaway, did it?"

Yeah that's what I was wondering too but I didn't phrase it particularly well.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 9:47am

IHey, best12bars, in the revamped tour directed by Susan Schulman starring Petula Clark, they removed a lot of the music from the Joe and Betty scenes and turned the "Boy meets Girl" song into dialogue. I found it much less annoying than the song.

So glad to hear it, sondheimboy2. That's exactly what I was talking about.

Sorry to hear the Petula Clark wasn't right for Norma. I actually think (based on her film work) that she's a good actress ... not a great one, but certainly capable. Maybe she just didn't know how to approach the role or the singing. She was fairly old for it at the time, too, wasn't she?

That's what I meant earlier, though, about rotating a bunch of "stars" into the main role. This musical doesn't have enough punch to fly on its own, because the show isn't very strong to begin with.

Updated On: 2/4/14 at 09:47 AM

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 9:52am

I guess you could see it as “playing up the comedy,” but she made Norma kooky, almost daffy in an “I Love Lucy” kind of way, and it sucked all the gravitas right out of the character and, thereby, the show. Everything was imbalanced.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 9:59am

That's the way I felt when I saw Glenda Jackson and John Lithgow (both brilliant actors) in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Edward Albee directed them himself as if they were in a comedy (actually a sitcom). It was horrible, and it made his masterwork a light, slightly biting, witty but largely forgettable play.

Can you imagine?

I can, because I saw it.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 10:08am

Wow, I’m jealous. That sounds worthwhile just because now you have the story!

Isn’t it amazing how even a great text like that can so easily seem pedestrian?

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 10:21am

Glenda "Elizabeth R" Jackson?!

...that is truly heartbreaking.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 10:51am

Not only that, Cynthia Nixon played Honey!

The whole play was forgettable, and you can thank Edward Albee, who said he had always intended for it to be a comedy.

That's just one of the reasons why I pay playwright's directorial opinions of their own work very little mind. They're not directors. Albee essentially sabotaged his own work, because he didn't understand (or care about) the power of it. He wanted to bring out the humor and make it less "heavy."

Imagine if he had directed the original! It would have been a forgotten flop instead of a masterpiece of American theatre.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 7:05pm

A friend of mine was a reviewer for an L.A. publication at the time of the Doolittle Theatre's production of "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?". He was at a loss for words. He thought it was beyond terrible. In fact he suggested it would've probably have played better if Lithgow and Jackson had switched roles.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 7:08pm

Besty, not to go too off topic, but that's fascinating about the Virginia Woolf. Albee directed a Broadway revival in the mid 70s with Coleen Dewhurst (yes, Marilla from Anne of Green Gables :P ) and Ben Gazarra, were these productions based on each other? It seems to have ran a few months, but I have no idea how it did. I do know his direction of Seascape's original production got praise, but that's a vastly different play.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 7:24pm

I saw the same production of VIRGINIA WOOLF and I could not agree more with best12. The whole thing was weird, because the play gets plenty of laughs even when played as tragedy.

(What was even odder was that I sat next to Donna Pescow of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER fame and she laughed, chatted, flirted, cuddled and giggled with her date all through the performance. I would think an actress (and a good one in her day) would have more respect for the performers even if the production didn't work.)

Updated On: 2/4/14 at 07:24 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 7:30pm

Ah, well see, I like her Cruella DeVil.

Matt, I hope it was clear I wasn't knocking Close's interpretation of Cruella, a character who was always high camp. The problem was playing Norma Desmond in the same vein.

Updated On: 2/4/14 at 07:30 PM

[James885]

Posted: 2/4/14 at 8:54pm

I echo everything that's pretty much already been said. I've never saw the show on Broadway, but I've seen a regional production of it. Aside from a couple nice songs, the majority of the show simply isn't that good. It's not bad either, it's just mediocre. Best12bars called it when he said that there's too much music, and I agree - the Joe / Betty songs brought the show to a halt every single time. I liked Max's 'Greatest Star of All', but agree that he talks way too much in the musical.

The only point, IMO when the show soars is the 'As If We Never Said Goodbye' scene. Everything else was just meh. The original film is much more memorable, and in my opinion, a true masterpiece.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/5/14 at 7:57pm

And as with most or all of ALW's shows, EVERY song is eventually sung by EVERY role, which means music no longer conveys character in ALW's work. Taking us back to the 1700s or thereabouts.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/5/14 at 8:21pm

To be fair he does that more with his sorta serious "operatic" shows. Like them or not, certainly that's not true of Cats and Starlight, for example. :P

[theatregeek6]

Posted: 2/6/14 at 1:22pm

Actually, the best Norma I saw was Rita Moreno covering Clark's vacation in the West End. Better than Close, Elaine Page or Betty Buckley.

Also saw Karen Mason in it (I am a HUGE Karen Mason fan) and thought she was just totally miscast.

[lovebwy]

Posted: 2/6/14 at 6:31pm

I saw La Close two times. Once in previews in LA in November and at the closing night in June. She was much better earlier in the run. By the end of the LA run she was really camping it up and playing for laughs. In the earlier performance she was much darker and more serious.

Not sure what happened when she went to Broadway. It sounds like she turned down the camp a bit.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/6/14 at 9:41pm

To be fair he does that more with his sorta serious "operatic" shows. Like them or not, certainly that's not true of Cats and Starlight, for example. :P

I don't see how that's better than what I said.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/6/14 at 9:57pm

You suggested that all of his musical themes in each show are eventually sung by every character. :P I was making a (poorly worded) joke but nobody in either of those shows sings a theme by one of the others (unless it's a chorus number.) Or mostly not--I know some of the cats sing a bit of Memory when referring to Grizabella (I think--it's been a long time) but that does make dramatic sense (as much as anything in Cats makes dramatic sense.) Actually for as much of a meh show as I consider Cats, I do think it shows ALW's strength at pastiche and finding clever rhythms for the existing poems that, if you read them, aren't always obvious. Starlight, on the other hand...

[ARTc3]

Posted: 2/6/14 at 10:12pm

I have read through most - not all - of this thread. I'd like to add a comment, but do so with the caveat that perhaps this has been typed and I just missed it:

I saw Sunset Boulevard and the set wasn't all that. Everyone goes on and on about the heft of this set - both physically and financially. Sunset Boulevard, had one very interesting "drop" that was a relief of the mansion. It was the main set and it was good, but as it was reused over and over throughout the evening, even it lost the "magic" of the original reveal. The rest of the set pieces were rather dull and often looked like they belonged in a different show. The detail of the "one" amazing mansion drop, was so elaborate that everything else on stage paled in comparison.

So, I would add, that even the set wasn't that great.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/7/14 at 8:32pm

^^^ART, I agree and would add that once the house unit lifted off the floor to reveal the garage underneath, all of its sense of weight and gravitas evaporated. Then we got to watch the fake marble rise and fall for the following 2 hours.

----

Eric, I understood your post and, trust me, I bow without shame to your knowledge of all things ALW. My response was merely to say that if ALW is going to discard the function of music as a revelation of ethos, better to do so in the comedies than the tragedies. :P

[chernjam]

Posted: 2/8/14 at 12:38am

Well I take the minority view on this thread. I do think it was one of ALW's masterpieces. To reveal all biases - I saw the show 10 times - the most I've seen of any Broadways Show. (2 times with Glen Close; 2 times with Karen Mason; 2 times with Betty Buckley; 2 times with Elaine Paige; 2 times with Petula Clark on the US Tour)

Musically I found it one of ALW's most beautifully-through-written scores (up there with Aspects of Love my other favorite) Including some of the recitative that others complained about (i.e. Girl Meets Boy)

Why did it fail - primarily because of ALW's ego and lack of producing skills. When the show finally did close (on broadway) it had earned back close to 85% of its investment. Not sure how the lawsuits and stuff figured in - but I remember reading some investors who were furious with the lavishness of the production (the car that Norma drives to paramount which was onstage for maybe a minute cost some ridiculous amount of money was one example of this)

The fact that when the NY production opened it had the largest ticket advance in Broadway history (which from my knowledge still hasn't been broken with $37.5 million dollars in advance) and that it wasn't able to pay back its investment in 2 and a half years - with some long months of it being sold out tells you that there was just a lot of mismanagement.

Of all the Normas I saw - Betty Buckley had to have been the best mix of voice and acting. The worst - Elaine Paige (who I think contributed to its somewhat early demise with that atrocious performance) Karen Mason was an absolute phenomenon.

I really hope that we'll soon see a full-throttled, 25th anniversary revival production in London/NY in the next few years. Would love to see it fully mounted with a complete orchestra, vast sets and true star. For the UK - Joanna Riding who's in Stephen Ward would be amazing as Norma. Here in the US, I wonder how Christine Ebersole would do?

[chernjam]

Posted: 2/8/14 at 12:39am

Knew I remembered reading a NY Times article about "why Sunset failed" - a somewhat accurate account of events: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/04/theater/for-sunset-boulevard-it-s-the-end-of-the-road.html