Nicole Scherzinger to star in West End Sunset Boulevard at the Savoy — Page 13

Since someone else has brought it up - I wonder if there has/will be any modifications for Rachel Tucker’s performance. 

Nicole was off last night.

Show cancelled - understudy no ready. 

JasonC3 said: "Mskuphantm said: "Started to think about this production a bit more.... as far as the re-imagining goes. Norma could easily have been a top model selling products using her body and face, then social media influencers took over and she lost her career, so now she is going back to get back what she lost in her way."

That's great, but that's not Sunset Boulevard, a name that has clear connotations because of its source material."

You're absolutely correct.  This is a reimagining of a musical by a director who has a clear vision of how he wanted to present this show, to where ALW is even on board, to allow them to cut songs, add dialogue etc.  Source material from the movie, which at the core is about a woman who was at top of her career,  replaced/faded away, the plot is still there.  It's changed, it's what is being performed, I was offering a thought on how people can take this piece when there are those who are hung out on the peculiarness of certain things that were changed.  This is an art installation of the musical open to different interpretations for this current show, not the Original Sunset, this is its own version.

Jordan Catalano said: "But the problem is that it’s only its “own version” to a point. Because as much as everyone wants to say it’s this or it’s that or it takes place in this time period or no time period - the script (as still presented) sets it in a distinct time period telling a distinct story involving historically real people, locking it into that time. So this is where Lloyds vision becomes muddled because he desperately wants it to take place in a sort of purgatory where nothing is real yet at the same time showing us the real world in 2023 with laptops and twerking and Nicole tongue popping and dancing saying she’s MC Hammer.

And whenever I discuss what I perceive as the flaws of this production, I always need to add the fact that I DID enjoy it. It’s just having seen it a couple times (and seeing Rachel Tucker in a couple weeks) the flaws become more evident."

Norma Desmond is not a real person...

Oh really??? Wow thank you I didn’t know that. 
 

Cecil B DeMille was a real person. Rudolph Valentino was a real person. Douglas Fairbanks was a real person. 

DeMille is a character in this musical, he’s not just simply referenced. His existence is a major plot point. His filming a movie at Paramount that Norma visits the set to is a major part of the story. I don’t know what you’re talking about. 

And I’m talking about what worked for ME and did not work for ME when watching this. I didn’t talk about what worked for YOU. 

Oh, love. That’s nice to know, love. Thanks so much for your response, love.  

As someone who has seen many of his production, Jamie Loyd's productions are best enjoyed when they are viewed as 'alternate reality' universes.  His anachronisitc choices are metaphoric. I understand this is jarring for a recent work like Sunset Boulevard, but do we still give this much thought when Shakespeare is set in the fture but the characters continue to refer to historic 16th century people and swords?  

Anachromism, placing something or someone in an incorrect historical time. This is per definition a mistake. If you want to do this to a story, you can rewrite it, like Madame Butterfly and turn it into Miss Saigon. Adjust its time period, lyrics and details accordingly. Letting a Japanese Geisha in a story that takes place in 1904 sing she's Vietnamese and in war during the fall of Saigon in 1975 would just be dumb. That has nothing to do with "metaphors" or "alternate universes". It's just lazy, incorrect and talentless directing. Nearly all lyrics in Sunset Boulevard are about the silent film era. "We didn't need words, we had faces", "I can say anything I want with my eyes", "no words can tell the story my eyes tell", "It's the pictures that got small, talk, talk, only words", and also many scenes, such as the whole Salome scene with the head on the plate and the Maharadja in Max' song who hang himself, etc, are all references to an era. Most scenes are also about movie sets and script writing, old Hollywood. It is the whole storyline about how Joe and Norma meet and how Betty comes into the story and about the history of Max. 

To me, "current times jokes", such as sashimi jokes in the Little mermaid, Twerking and Mc Hammer jokes in Sunset Boulevard, but also breaking the 4th wall by implementing personal situations of the actors deliberately in the show as a joke are extremely disrespectful, but this director takes this disrespect to a whole new level. Is it really that important to him to use a laptop as a prop? Which doesn't serve anything to the story and which is very time specific? Is trying to be obstructive, rebellious or jarring the only reason? That's not very inspiring. I see no other purpose of a laptop. If you want to create an alternate universe but insist on using the original lyrics and story, do it. Don't just add some incorrect modern, very time and place bound products for the sake of it. That's just today's universe. Good directors can look beyond that.

OhHiii said: "Seb28 said: ""To me, "current times jokes", such as sashimi jokes in the Little mermaid, Twerking and Mc Hammer jokes in Sunset Boulevard, but also breaking the 4th wall by implementing personal situations of the actors deliberately in the show as a joke are extremely disrespectful, but this director takes this disrespect to a whole new level."

Disrespectful to WHO?! "

To the story he is trying to tell. Deliberately taking people out of it. Out of the desired universe. That shows zero respect for the storyline or material, and therefore the audience, which is not taken seriously.

OhHiii said: "But the expressions of disgust for some of the choices in this are precisely why Lloyd did them."

I know and it shows. It does nothing to serve the story. And it's not an alternate universe. It's the silent film era (which all the lyrics say) combined with some 2023 props and jokes. That's not an alternative universe/modern lens. It's uninspired.

 

 

Updated On: 10/12/23 at 06:35 PM

binau said: "bored out of my mind watching a traditional production of sunset. I like that Jamie Lloyd found a way to fix the show for me to make me feel entertained, shocked and thrilled. It does look like Jamie Lloyd doesn’t trust the material but that’s because it’s not something to trust in my opinion lol."

Yes, you really dislike the show. Seeing it being butchered and liking that they are deliberately taking people out of the story by jokes not related to it can be better described as "enjoying seeing something you dislike getting trashed", instead of "trusting it".

Wicked is like that for me. The more they ruin a production or movie about it and the more they take me out of the story by unrelated pop culture jokes, the more entertained I will be.

 

Updated On: 10/12/23 at 07:09 PM