Why did SUNSET BOULEVARD fail? — Page 3

I'll never forget that Petula Clark performance. It remains one of the most grandly miscalculated performances I've ever seen.

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"It also didn't really help that Really Useful had to pay large settlements to both LuPone and Faye Dunaway, did it?"

Yeah that's what I was wondering too but I didn't phrase it particularly well.

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I guess you could see it as “playing up the comedy,” but she made Norma kooky, almost daffy in an “I Love Lucy” kind of way, and it sucked all the gravitas right out of the character and, thereby, the show. Everything was imbalanced.

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Wow, I’m jealous. That sounds worthwhile just because now you have the story!

Isn’t it amazing how even a great text like that can so easily seem pedestrian?

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Not only that, Cynthia Nixon played Honey!

The whole play was forgettable, and you can thank Edward Albee, who said he had always intended for it to be a comedy.

That's just one of the reasons why I pay playwright's directorial opinions of their own work very little mind. They're not directors. Albee essentially sabotaged his own work, because he didn't understand (or care about) the power of it. He wanted to bring out the humor and make it less "heavy."

Imagine if he had directed the original! It would have been a forgotten flop instead of a masterpiece of American theatre.

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Besty, not to go too off topic, but that's fascinating about the Virginia Woolf. Albee directed a Broadway revival in the mid 70s with Coleen Dewhurst (yes, Marilla from Anne of Green Gables :P ) and Ben Gazarra, were these productions based on each other? It seems to have ran a few months, but I have no idea how it did. I do know his direction of Seascape's original production got praise, but that's a vastly different play.

Ah, well see, I like her Cruella DeVil.

Matt, I hope it was clear I wasn't knocking Close's interpretation of Cruella, a character who was always high camp. The problem was playing Norma Desmond in the same vein.

Updated On: 2/4/14 at 07:30 PM

And as with most or all of ALW's shows, EVERY song is eventually sung by EVERY role, which means music no longer conveys character in ALW's work. Taking us back to the 1700s or thereabouts.

Actually, the best Norma I saw was Rita Moreno covering Clark's vacation in the West End. Better than Close, Elaine Page or Betty Buckley.

Also saw Karen Mason in it (I am a HUGE Karen Mason fan) and thought she was just totally miscast.

To be fair he does that more with his sorta serious "operatic" shows. Like them or not, certainly that's not true of Cats and Starlight, for example. :P

I don't see how that's better than what I said.

I have read through most - not all - of this thread. I'd like to add a comment, but do so with the caveat that perhaps this has been typed and I just missed it:

I saw Sunset Boulevard and the set wasn't all that. Everyone goes on and on about the heft of this set - both physically and financially. Sunset Boulevard, had one very interesting "drop" that was a relief of the mansion. It was the main set and it was good, but as it was reused over and over throughout the evening, even it lost the "magic" of the original reveal. The rest of the set pieces were rather dull and often looked like they belonged in a different show. The detail of the "one" amazing mansion drop, was so elaborate that everything else on stage paled in comparison.

So, I would add, that even the set wasn't that great.

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Well I take the minority view on this thread. I do think it was one of ALW's masterpieces. To reveal all biases - I saw the show 10 times - the most I've seen of any Broadways Show. (2 times with Glen Close; 2 times with Karen Mason; 2 times with Betty Buckley; 2 times with Elaine Paige; 2 times with Petula Clark on the US Tour)

Musically I found it one of ALW's most beautifully-through-written scores (up there with Aspects of Love my other favorite) Including some of the recitative that others complained about (i.e. Girl Meets Boy)

Why did it fail - primarily because of ALW's ego and lack of producing skills. When the show finally did close (on broadway) it had earned back close to 85% of its investment. Not sure how the lawsuits and stuff figured in - but I remember reading some investors who were furious with the lavishness of the production (the car that Norma drives to paramount which was onstage for maybe a minute cost some ridiculous amount of money was one example of this)

The fact that when the NY production opened it had the largest ticket advance in Broadway history (which from my knowledge still hasn't been broken with $37.5 million dollars in advance) and that it wasn't able to pay back its investment in 2 and a half years - with some long months of it being sold out tells you that there was just a lot of mismanagement.

Of all the Normas I saw - Betty Buckley had to have been the best mix of voice and acting. The worst - Elaine Paige (who I think contributed to its somewhat early demise with that atrocious performance) Karen Mason was an absolute phenomenon.

I really hope that we'll soon see a full-throttled, 25th anniversary revival production in London/NY in the next few years. Would love to see it fully mounted with a complete orchestra, vast sets and true star. For the UK - Joanna Riding who's in Stephen Ward would be amazing as Norma. Here in the US, I wonder how Christine Ebersole would do?