SUNSET BLVD ... who saw it?

[broadway1564]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 3:02pm

I was just curious ... how many of you saw a production fo SUNSET BLVD ... I only recently found this show (and by found, I mean that I recently found the music captivating after passing over it some many times).

I know this has nothing to do with the Broadway HERE AND NOW, but I was just curious of what people thought of the different Normas.

Thanks!

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 3:13pm

I saw it with Betty Buckley in 96--it was great--she was excellent. =)

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 3:25pm

I too saw it with Betty in '96. Thought she was great but hayayayayayayayaya-hey-hey-hated the show.

[bwaylyric]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 3:49pm

Loved the show! Loved Betty Buckley's performance on Broadway. Loved the touring production with Petula Clark. Pissed that it was Glenn Close on the cast recording. Didn't see Glenn perform, but after I got the CD, I heard it. Awful!

[WOSQ]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 3:55pm

This was one of those cases where the addition of a musical score added nothing to the telling of this story.

If previously written material is adapted to the stage the show needs to deepen our understanding of the people and their circumstances. Sunset Blvd simply told the story we had watched on television ten times already.

Wilder and Brackett told the story better and quicker. If anything this needed to be a sung-through quasi-opera instead of a musical play. The scenes with Norma and her mansion worked all right, well most of the time, but when we left her, the show became painful to watch. Its a miracle Alice Ripley got out alive. Her role is one of those horribly underwritten things that must be dull to play and duller to watch.

The production was clever but over-designed and the show only made back 75% of its cost in a 2+ year run.

No matter how we feel about Betty Buckley and Elaine Paige, when a big lauded star is replaced, the new lead has to appeal to a broader or at least new element of the public. [Are you listening Boy From Oz?] Buckley and Paige were less well-known than Glenn Close and the grosses dropped sharply during their tenures.

Go rent the video. It is a scathing brilliant satire and one of the best. The musical alas is not.

[BrdwyThtr]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 3:57pm

I saw the tour with Petula. I loved it. It had scaled down sets, but you still got the idea.

[wiggum2]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 3:59pm

I saw it with Elaine PAige, Betty Buckley, and Petula Clark. It was the first broadway show I saw and I loved it!

[logan30]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 4:26pm

I saw Glenn Close in the part. She gave the performance of her lifetime in that role. Her singing was shaky at times but it actually fit the character. Norma Desmond does have to struggle to hit the high notes. Alan Campbell was as Joe Gillis good but he would have been better had been more of a heel.

[SONDHEIM8]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 4:34pm

I saw Glenn Close and while I admired her performance I kept thinking about the "other" SUNSET. The one that might have been.

About 4 or 5 years before ALW wrote his version, Sondheim announced that he was writing a musical version of SUNSET that was to star Angela Lansbury! Just imagine it.

But for some reason it never came together.










LINK: Tracy, you look beautiful behind bars!

Tracy: It must be the low-watt institutional lighting!

[sharon1]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 4:36pm

I saw it. But only once. Loved it. Love the score

[poodleboy]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 5:06pm

Saw it with Patti Lupone, she sang the score great. The set and costumes seemed to have over powered her and her performance. Her(Patti's) Norma was not as frantic as Glen Close's and in the end did not match her(Glen's) emotional impact.
Glen's voice worked much better live than on the recording, I vote for Patti's recording and Glen live.
I find all Betty Buckly's performances to be cold and without feelings.
This is only one boy's opinion.

[CaTheatreGirl]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 5:41pm

I saw it in LA before it went to Broadway and again on Broadway right after the Tonys -- both with Glenn Close. She made the show (much as Hugh Jackman is the best thing about BFO) which I thought was a bit dull otherwise.

[robbiej]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 5:46pm

Sondheim8,

The reason he never wrote it is because he felt the story should never be a musical. And he was right.

SUNSET BLVD. was the first show I ever saw on a London stage (on a trip that included Arcadia, Ralph Finnes' Hamlet, Miss Saigon and a BRILLIANT fringe show called Too Much Too Young). Ms. Betty Buckley (of whom I've never been a huge fan) was terrific, but the show was eh.

However, the tour with Linda Balgord was REMARKABLE! It was one of the WORST things I've ever seen. I still chuckle thinking about it.

[orion59]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 6:04pm

I saw it with Glenn Close and felt her weak voice did not fit the character. Norma has two wonderful numbers (Just One Look and As If We Never Said Goodbye) in this show that sound much better when sung by someone with a strong, full voice. Someone like LaPone or Buckley. Her acting, as always was good but, she brought a certain comic sense to Norma at times which I didn't care for. Overall, I felt it was an okay show but it could have been so much more. I think WOSQ was correct in saying that it lacked something by not presenting anything new in the way of charater development or development of the overall story.

[jo]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 7:29pm

I saw it in London twice - with Betty Buckley and with Elaine Paige. And John Barrowman as Joe Gillis.

This is one of my better-liked Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. Some really memorable songs... I remember how Billy Wilder ( who directed the Gloria Swanson/William Holden film version) saying at the time of the musical's opening how much he liked the musicalization of his movie.

Now, if only they would make it into a movie again -- with Hugh Jackman ( who did the stage musical in Australia) as Joe Gillis. And Glenn Close or Meryl Streep as Norma ? Or maybe even Barbra Streisand in the lead role?


Jo

Updated On: 10/30/03 at 07:29 PM

[TEACHEROFTHEATER]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 7:40pm

I saw the original Broadway production and found it tedious and lumbering with a few exciting moments. Glenn Close's performance was on the mark, but very predictable and her singing voice didn't add to the material.

George Hearn was spellbinding as Max. His was a richly won Tony for that performance.

[mcphan19]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 8:14pm

I saw it 4 times - with Betty Buckley (twice) Elaine Paige and PeEtula Clark (2nd US tour) and I loved it (I also got to meet each of these Normas at the stage door) - the score was great, the original sets were awesome (the scaled down version was ok as well) and the lighting was perfect. I have just about every (official) recording ever made, including all the singles.

It's a shame there wasn't an Austalian cast recording ever made (or a complete German cast recording - Helen Schneider is possibly the creepiest, most sinister Norma I've ever heard) Glenn's voice on the US cast recording isn't that strong; she sounded WAY better at the ALW 50th Birthday Concert. The gunshots in the London cast recording are so fake; at least they sounded more realistic on the other recordings.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 9:21pm

Me & the Mrs ( don't you love that phrase - I dedicate this to a mutual friend ) saw the original with Glenn Close & we both loved it & the physical production as well

[Broadwaylady]

Posted: 10/30/03 at 10:15pm

I saw it on Broadway with Glenn Close and thought she was great in it.......