SUNSET BLVD. Reviews — Page 2

BoyCulture blogger Matthew Rettenmund gave a rave

https://www.boyculture.com/boy_culture/2024/10/sunset-blvd-theater-review-nicole-scherzinger.html

Updated On: 10/20/24 at 06:51 PM

Bette's Turban said: "What time is the embargo lifted?"

10 PM

David Gordon in Theatermania is positive

Review: Nicole Scherzinger's Performance of a Lifetime in Jamie Lloyd's Staggering Sunset Boulevard

Lloyd stages a hilariously deadpan take(down) of the Andrew Lloyd Webber mega-musical.

https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-nicole-scherzingers-performance-of-a-lifetime-in-jamie-lloyds-staggering-sunset-boulevard_1753346/

"It’s pretty clear what Lloyd thinks the tone of the show should be. If you have any question in Act 1, it’s answered right at the top of Act 2, when Francis wanders his way through the bowels of the St. James Theatre, passing one ensemble member holding a stuffed chicken, another wearing a monkey costume, two more making out, Thaxton staring lovingly at a photo of Scherzinger and her singing group the Pussycat Dolls, Scherzinger herself brandishing a gun and a “Jamie Lloyd Company” coffee mug, and a cardboard cutout of Lloyd Webber, which Francis puts his arm around. It’s straight up making fun of Sunset Boulevard, the musical, and the seriousness with which it’s always been presented. The show is all the better for it, and it’s just refreshing to see a director who has an actual opinion presenting it on the most expansive scale possible."

I remember standing ovations during the last revival with Glenn Close. Those are powerful moments that the audience is moved by. Looking forward to seeing this production next week!

Green in NYT is mixed. Still hates the material. Not a critic's pick.

In ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ Nicole Scherzinger Is 23 Feet Tall

A fascinating Broadway revival of the bombastic 1994 musical blows it up even further.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/theater/sunset-boulevard-review.html

"For despite many fascinating interventions by the director Jamie Lloyd and his technical team, and the fact that it is based on one of the greatest of movies, the musical remains too silly for words. In that sense, and others, Norma would have loved it."



"the result is that you are aware at all times, as if this were Brecht, of the performance as a performance, not as a characterization. (Still, in London, Scherzinger won praise and an Olivier.) The production’s many meta Easter eggs — the Pussycat Dolls and Lloyd Webber himself are referenced — do the same thing, taking some of the gas out of a gassy show but in the process pandering to the audience. When Scherzinger offers coy imitations of various contemporary vocal styles, her Norma becomes a woman who is in on the game, the last thing that oblivious creature could be.

Still, there are pleasures in submitting to Lloyd’s brutalist take on a submissive show. Francis, as Joe, does shutdown-cynical-corpse very well. The opening of each act includes beautifully executed surprises that set new standards, as perhaps “Sunset Boulevard” is best suited to do, for filmic theatricality. The lighting, by Jack Knowles, like an arena show in your amygdala, is startling throughout. The singing, too, is excellent and, even better, two of the tackiest songs (“The Lady’s Paying” and “Eternal Youth” ) have been cut. I wish more were."

Updated On: 10/20/24 at 10:01 PM

https://variety.com/2024/legit/reviews/sunset-boulevard-review-nicole-scherzinger-broadway-1236181291/

Nicole Scherzinger Astonishes in Jamie Lloyd’s Remarkable Broadway Staging of the Andrew Lloyd Webber Musical

Updated On: 10/20/24 at 10:03 PM

Hollywood Reporter

‘Sunset Blvd.’ Theater Review: Nicole Scherzinger Is Sensational in a Bold Reimagining of the Andrew Lloyd Webber Musical

Director Jamie Lloyd strips down both the material and the staging, threading film into theater in his radical take on the 1993 show based on the classic Hollywood noir about a forgotten screen siren.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/sunset-blvd-broadway-review-nicole-scherzinger-andrew-lloyd-webber-jamie-lloyd-1236038232/

Jones in Chicago Tribune is positive

Review: Nicole Scherzinger is devastating in a sultry new ‘Sunset Blvd.’ on Broadway

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/10/20/review-nicole-scherzinger-is-devastating-in-a-sultry-new-sunset-blvd-on-broadway/

"Scherzinger is fantastic.

Sure, you’re watching stylized acting. But Norma was a silent movie star, after all, and this was never a part screaming for modesty. Heck, in the 1990s when “Sunset Boulevard” first crossed the Atlantic, I recall the backstage stories of diva rivalry being more intense than anything the paying customers were buying.

But as one who has seen this show a dozen times before, I think the brilliance of Lloyd’s revival, aside from the silky-sensual choreography from Fabian Aloise, is how it devictimizes Norma and pushes the emphasis of the material away from the eccentricity of the star, its prior root, and towards the cruelty of the Hollywood system that used her up and spat her out."

The Wrap is negative

‘Sunset Blvd.’ Broadway Review: Nicole Scherzinger Evokes Sally Bowles and Carrie White

Jamie Lloyd’s revival is both minimal and excessive
https://www.thewrap.com/sunset-blvd-broadway-review-nicole-scherzinger/

"For me, the big surprise of this “Sunset Blvd.” is Scherzinger’s outrageously campy over-the-top performance. Like so much of this revival, it is both minimal and excessive. Her look is minimal while her acting goes way beyond anything delivered by either Swanson or Close, neither of whom offered particularly subtle studies in mature womanhood.

When Scherzinger sings, she comes up with drag queen gestures that haven’t been seen since Susan Hayward lip-synched “I’ll Plant My Own Tree” in “Valley of the Dolls.”

She’s also horny. When Gloria Swanson’s Norma invites William Holden’s Joe McGillis to spend the night in a bedroom above her garage, it is not obvious that she’s on the make. Scherzinger, on the other hand, delivers the invitation with such Cruella de Vil lust that she gets a big laugh from the audience.

And when she doesn’t get a laugh at other dramatic moments, she flips her hair around in a “take that, biiiitch!” gesture that provokes guffaws. It’s not just her exaggerated line readings, it’s that she’s being taped in close-up — so we see her bulging eyes and lips, her flicking tongue. This Norma wants to be serviced by Joe (Tom Francis) so badly that when she sits down to spread her legs wide, Scherzinger forgets for a moment that this musical is “Sunset Blvd.,” not “Cabaret.”

Four stars from TimeOut

Sunset Blvd.

4 out of 5 stars

Nicole Scherzinger plays screen icon Norma Desmond in a bold noir revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

"Lloyd’s combination of focus and mixed-media variety provides a dynamism that Sunset Boulevard needs. Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s libretto has been judiciously pruned and polished for this revival. The removal of two lesser songs, ”The Lady’s Paying” and “Eternal Youth Is Worth a Little Suffering,” makes Norma’s isolation more complete, and the scenes between Joe and his screenwriter friend Betty (Grace Hodgett Young, believable and grounded) are more realistic and specific. But with the major exception of Norma’s big moments, Lloyd Webber’s score is heavy on filler. Repetitive jazz leitmotifs—motifs lite—fill out the score like Hamburger Helper as we wait for Norma’s two beefy, “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”—style solos: ”With One Look” in the first act, “As If We Never Said Goodbye” in the second.

Scherzinger makes these moments worth the wait, and then some."

Washington Post

Nicole Scherzinger is too glam for ‘Sunset Blvd.’ It hardly matters.

The onetime pop star makes an astonishing Broadway debut as faded film siren Norma Desmond.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater/2024/10/20/nicole-scherzinger-sunset-blvd-review/

"Nicole Scherzinger’s radiance as Norma Desmond in “Sunset Blvd.” is difficult to overstate. She sings “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” an aching one-sided duet with fame, with such delicacy and gut-slugging power that even Barbra Streisand, who covered it the same year the musical came to Broadway in 1994, might consider retiring the song from her repertoire.

If that sounds like hyperbole daring theater queens to flood my mentions, here are a few more: Scherzinger, who moves with the steely grace of an exacting ballet mistress, is almost absurdly glamorous. She has the rare, unflinching magnetism of an exotic bird and commands the spotlight with bone-chilling intensity.

Does all that make it hard to believe her Norma Desmond is a has-been hanging on by a thread? Yes, laughably so. But if buying Norma’s fragility is a major casualty, the pleasures of such a tremendous performance are worth the sacrifice."

NY Sun

With a Remarkably Intense Performance, Nicole Scherzinger Brings to Life the Fictional Star at the Center of ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ Norma Desmond

The production that introduces Scherzinger’s Norma to New York is a revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical adaptation of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ that has already earned wild acclaim during a London run.

https://www.nysun.com/article/with-a-remarkably-intense-performance-nicole-scherzinger-brings-to-life-the-fictional-star-at-the-center-of-sunset-boulevard-norma-desmond