John Napier's Brilliant Set Designs for the original SUNSET BOULEVARD- Page 2

[Dolly80]

Posted: 4/12/24 at 2:58am

TBFL said: "TaffyDavenport said: "The "split screen" of "This Time Next Year" is one of the best pieces of staging I've ever seen, if not the best."

The Jamie Lloyd production heading to NYC has a nice little homage to that staging. When they light the scene, the light only goes up to about the height That the house raised to in the original. Not sure if it was intentional, seems too similar for it not to be.

As great as that set design is, it's cost was also it's downfall."

That ‘homage’ comment is quite the reach🤣

[devonian.t]

Posted: 4/12/24 at 3:25am

John Napier- what a legend. I encountered him a few times and yes he often seemed like a curmudgeon, but what a genius!  Arguably the most important contributor to the mega-musical movement (though his designs could also be sparse and very economical).

Updated On: 4/12/24 at 03:25 AM

[TBFL]

Posted: 4/14/24 at 7:00am

Dolly80 said: "TBFL said: "TaffyDavenport said: "The "split screen" of "This Time Next Year" is one of the best pieces of staging I've ever seen, if not the best."

The Jamie Lloyd production heading to NYC has a nice little homage to that staging. When they light the scene, the light only goes up to about the height That the house raised to in the original. Not sure if it was intentional, seems too similar for it not to be.

As great as that set design is, it's cost was also it's downfall."

That ‘homage’ comment is quite the reach🤣"

Go see it and find out

 

[HasBeen1947]

Posted: 4/16/24 at 10:55am

You are better able to see the full range of motion of the mansion set in the opening of the 1995 Tony Awards.  This video is a bit blurry, but especially during the Smokey Joe's performance, you can see the lights that were rigged underneath the mansion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1Kk9j16Y2M&list=PLSSBX5V9BkpxfqrfUGvPcko6DdDu4CawA

How convenient for the awards to be taped at the Minskoff so they could show off this gorgeous set!

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 4/16/24 at 11:11am

Thanks so much for sharing that clip HasBeen, it’s the best square-on view I’ve seen of it. Must have been sensational in person.

You also get some great from-above views of Napier’s stage floor. Gorgeous patterns. What a design!!! 

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 4/16/24 at 11:20am

Honestly, I'm of mixed mind about Napier's original SUNSET set. To be sure it was a technical marvel, but it was also cumbersome, always breaking down, and outside of its impressive photo realism, not always theatrically creative.  It isn't the brilliant piece of ingenius stage design that I think, for example, Maria Bjornson's set for PHANTOM was.  I also think the scenery created an expectation for the piece that has followed it until Jamie Lloyd's interpretation. In other words, it took Jamie's production for people to look at the material as something other than a kind of hollow excuse for massive scenery.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 4/16/24 at 11:21am

morosco said: "Watch the video linked below. It is video captured from the infrared stage manager's camera located on the balcony rail. It allows us to "see in the dark". Napier's designs were truly mind blowing. He fit a huge amount of scenery onto that stage! This video is from a preview performance in London. LuPone stars.


SUNSET BOULEVARD - West End (July, 1993)"

What the ****? Where did they store all of that?? The mansion I understand but there's so much of everything else, I never realized just how jam-packed this design was.

[Tag]

Posted: 4/16/24 at 11:39am

Anyone know how they preset the Norma at the top of the stairs? Did they fly it in, and then she ran up there? (The Tony's video would suggest, at least for that event, that she was up there at the top of the show)

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 4/16/24 at 11:56am

Nightly during the show, the mansion would be lowered behind the Car Chase scene and hidden by scrims, and then Norma would climb up the back when it was sitting at ground level. 
For the Tonys she must have been up there the entire time. 

[bowtie7]

Posted: 4/16/24 at 5:05pm

BorisTomashevsky said: "Nightly during the show, the mansion would be lowered behind the Car Chase scene and hidden by scrims, and then Norma would climb up the backwhen it was sitting at ground level.
For the Tonys she must have been up there the entire time."

I believe she became engaged to stage carpenter Steve Beers (though never married), who would take her each performance to the top of the set.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 4/16/24 at 5:12pm

As mentioned above, the mansion’s first appearance is already on stage level then slowly glides downstage. The 2nd floor landing had a small changing area behind the small balcony so actresses were able to be costume changed up there without having to run down the set of stairs behind the set. When the mansion levitates during Artie’s New Year’s Eve party, the actress and actor playing Max are on the suspended set during the entire sequence. Also, most notably in Act 2, whenever an actor is on the set when it levitates, they are up there until the set lowers back to stage level. The set of steps behind the mansion set are only functional when the set is on stage level. Once the set levitates, you’re stuck up there.