Sunset Boulevard


National tour of the movie-based musical. Through May 2 at the Shubert, New Haven. 562-5666.

by Christopher Arnott

Lewis Cleale has indeed had a magical theater career. At the Goodspeed you've seen him fantastically Swinging on a Star and aiding his brother Harry's derring-do as Theo in Houdini. Now, in the refigured touring version of Sunset Boulevard, Cleale marches through the movie magic of 1950s Hollywood. His screen-idol handsomeness is a distraction at first, since his role is the scruffy, bitter screenwriter Joe McGillis. But his looks help speed the abrupt romantic subplots in this preternaturally peppy musical version of Billy Wilder's dark, deep film classic.

One of those romances is with wide-eyed script editor Betty (played by Sarah Uriarte Berry, who's just as perky and charming as when she played Julie in the national tour of Carousel that hit the Shubert in 1996). The in-joke in this production is that the best-friend character whom Joe steals Betty away from is played by Berry's real-life husband, Michael Berry, a dynamic supporting player with a touch of tough Tim Roth in him. The Joe/Sarah scenes are nevertheless gushily believable, and give a "Jeepers! I'm in love!" goose to an otherwise moody and mordant scenario.

Joe's other love scenes, of course, are with the wilted grand dame Norma Desmond, an excitable former silent screen star who rescues Joe from his sorry existence but exacts her own steep payment by enlisting him as her screenwriting collaborator (for her delusional comeback attempt), and then as her boy toy.

Petula Clark is a small woman, seemingly not grand enough to be Norma Desmond when she first enters, but she rises in stature as her pitiable story unfolds. She sharply enunciates her consonants in this mostly-sung melodrama, and falls short a few notes in some of her character-setting numbers in the first act. But Clark gains our affections eventually, and excels in her sedentary solo "As If We Never Said Goodbye" just after intermission. That song is perfectly suited to Clark's vocal range and cuddly acting style, and she delivers it with the same assurance she showed in her forthright pop hits of the 1960s. When, as Norma, she recalls the glorious Hollywood of her yesteryears, it's with the same whimsical longing that Clark reserved for "Downtown" and "I Know a Place," and it's entirely fitting.

As has been widely reported, Sunset Boulevard has scaled down the lavishness of its Broadway and original touring set designs so as to squeeze its Californian scale into conventionally sized theaters. But this is one of the grandest sets the Shubert has accommodated. It's clunky at times, but more than enough to create the needed atmospherics. Trevor Nunn's original staging has been supplanted by that of Susan Schulman (who did the national tour of The Secret Garden and Broadway's most recent Sound of Music revival). Basically, the chorus members have to jump out of the way of the constant set changes. This makes them edgy and properly frenzied for their "let's do lunch" and "I hate my job" ain't-Hollwood-crazy ensemble numbers.

Sunset Boulevard is a hollow take on Wilder's brilliant film. Andrew Lloyd Webber's score is self-consciously splendorific and Christopher Hampton's script strains to include all of Wilder's nuances. But as contemporary musical theater goes, this show has the depth and glamour that Frank Wildhorn would kill for. Just as Norma Desmond pines for the days when the movies were bigger, this Sunset Boulevard reminds you, without quite demonstrating to you, of when theater was majestic.