What Do You Think About Sunset Boulevard? — Page 2

There is a Patti LuPone recording of the show....
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000001E3D/qid=1145105998/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/104-9604139-3047137?s=music&v=glance&n=5174

Updated On: 4/15/06 at 08:58 AM

Sunset Blvd. is one of my all time favorites. I saw the tour with Linda Balgord and Ron Bohmer (who was particularily excellent) and Lauren Kennedy 3 times - loved it. I'm a huge fan of the film as well.

I'm not a huge ALW fan (but I'm not a hater either), and in theory I wouldn't like a show with so many reprises... but that didn't seem to bother me in the least with this one.

Well this was the show that made me become an ALW hater.

I wasn't as taken with CATS of PHANTOM as others were, but I liked a lot of the music in SONG AND DANCE and ASPECTS OF LOVE. But SUNSET pushed me over the edge.

My unanswered question is WHY do people think this is a good musical?

Is it the story? It has been lifted - at times word for word - from the screenplay (which is a deserved classic) but nothing of value has been added by the authors of the musical.

Is it the set? I have said before and will say again a good show does not NEED a huge set. (Witness the success of the current SWEENEY.) And SB would never work without it.

There are a few nice songs in the SB score but because Webber didn't have time to write an original score he recycled most of it from his trunk. Consequently nothing really fits together and there is no coheseiveness to it. And the lyrics are horrible: no depth, not plot advancement, no character development.

When I read a thread where people claim this is a great show I can only assume they haven't seen the original film (if they had they would see how badly bastardized the musical version is)
or they have not seen many musicals.

I have a friend in Croatia who loves this musical. Now he has never seen it, but rates it as his favourite musical of all time. But I was to later he doesn't know MY FAIR LADY or GYPSY. Doesn't like SHOW BOAT or OKLAHOMA! or RAGTIME or CHICAGO. He is not really a fan of musicals: just a fan of ALW.

So, to all SB lovers..please tell me WHY you think this is a good musical?

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I saw it in LA when Ms. Close played Norma, prior to Broadway. Then I caught the much scaled down tour in San Francisco which starred Petula Clark. I thought Petula was the better Norma. That being said, no one can touch Gloria Swanson's Norma in the original film.

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sunset is among my top three all-time favorite shows/scores (Les Mis and Phantom being the other two) and I got to see the show four times - twice with Betty Buckley (in NY, once with Brian Batt and the other with Alan Campbell), once with Elaine Paige (again in NY, even got to meet her at the stage door) and once with Petula Clark in the Second US Tour. I've also heard the BBC concert version, which was great (would have loved to have seen it though). I have all the (legal) cast recordings and singles, including some of the more rare singles such as the Betty Buckley 4 track CD only sold at the Minskoff (best $10 I've ever spent), the Glenn Close "Perfect Year" single, and the Debra Byrne "As If We Never Said Goodbye" single.

As for why I think it's a great musical, of course the story itself is brilliant, and the score complements the characters (although I will admit the score is more noticably repetitive due to the sameness of the lyrics - all ALW shows have a degree of repetitiveness and recycled melodies). But I digress. The sets don't necessarily make the show (the scaled down version worked just as well as the full sets), but I think it's the performers and their own interpretations of the characters is what makes the show great.

I do hope the movie version is in the works, but I worry that it will be miscast with "big name" actors or (gasp!) younger unknowns to attract the younger audiences (which is the only explaination of the casting of the Phantom movie).