NORFOLK VIRGINIAN-PILOT



Petula Clark Shines in 'Sunset'

by Mal Vincent
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot

February 24, 2000

      There is nothing quite so poignant as faded glory - the remnants of a past that can't be revived. Such is the plight of Norma Desmond, former silent-screen star who has been, we are told, "abandoned by 30 million fans."
      Aging and living alone in her crumbling Hollywood mansion, she dreams of returning to the limelight at the same time she "adopts" a handsome young writer. The elimination of dangling participles from her script is not his only duty.
      Her impending madness, however, is nothing compared to the apparent obsession of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber to turn her drama, the 1950 Billy Wilder movie "Sunset Boulevard," into a musical. Webber, who hasn't had a hit since "Phantom of the Opera" debuted well over a decade ago, churned out some grand, but highly predictable, ballads and oversaw legal battles that had both Patti LuPone and Faye Dunaway eventually getting lofty legal settlements over their alleged contracts to play the role. With William and Mary grad Glenn Close in the part (and winning a Tony Award for her efforts), the resulting show became a legend more for its sets than for its drama - including a huge Hollywood mansion that moved menacingly toward the audience and, with the help of millions of dollars in hydraulic elevator equipment, could even move up into the air.
      The show has the dubious distinction of being the costliest disaster in Broadway history - netting a loss of $20 million even though it played for two years, often to sellout business.
      Now, "Sunset Boulevard" is on the road in a scaled-down version that eliminates what we had previously thought was unnecessary and blighted scenery. Gone is the opening sequence in which the audience is made to think it is at the bottom of Norma's pool, facing upward into the face of a floating dead body. Gone is the huge moving mansion. Gone, too, is our illusion that this show didn't need all those trappings. Woefully, it would be the same as saying "Phantom" didn't need the chandelier.
      Petula Clark, a lovable and precious star from our pop music past, now has the role of Norma. She sings the show's two signature ballads, "With One Look" and "As If We Never Said Goodbye," with a clarity and loveliness that were missing in Close's excessively insane reading. Unfortunately, though, Clark lacks the dramatic verve to suggest the progressive downfall of Norma.
      She has been misdirected to make this sad woman more "vulnerable" and apparently to add comedic mannerisms that make her closer to Baby Jane Hudson ("Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?") than to Norma Desmond. The emphasis is misplaced because, after all, Norma was always vulnerable - a woman who, when played with intensity, is understandably deranged. Her final breakdown should have some of the tragedy of Blanche Dubois in "Streetcar" - an admirable force finally broken.
      Clark's braying "Maaax" to summon her servant is more that of a harridan than a sophisticated star of yesteryear. There is little suggestion that the woman we see here could have been a legendary dramatic star.
      Susan H. Schulman, who restaged "The Secret Garden" into a Broadway hit after it had its world premiere at Virginia Stage Company, is not as successful in restaging Trevor Nunn's original direction here. But, given her assignment of making the show smaller and more fluid, she has done a respectable job.
      When Norma mutters her signature line, "I'm still BIG. It's the pictures that got small," there is a temptation to think, instead, that actually it's the show that's gotten smaller.
      The show has operatic pretensions, complete with sung dialogue that borrows directly from the script of the film. It is at its best in the realm of haunting film noir when it borrows from Franz Waxman's original movie music. Webber, again, likes to take several songs and repeat them throughout the evening. His best song here, "With One Look," is a ripoff of his best song from "Phantom," "That's All I Ask of You." One supposes he's entitled to borrow from himself.
      Don Black's lyrics try very hard to suggest the dark, horrifying aspects of the movie to the point of using the movie script itself. The new script is by playwright Christopher Hampton ("Les Liaisons Dangereuses") but, in the end, this is a rather misguided effort to stamp the bigness of "Phantom" and "Les Mis" on a drama that is more intimate and personal.
      Lewis Cleale is mixed in his vocal readings - sometimes strong and sometimes indiscernible. In the William Holden role, he's obsessed with macho time - stripping to his swimming trunks to open Act II with a cynical diatribe against the shallowness of Hollywood. But he seems peeved rather than cynical about the fact that Hollywood hasn't discovered his talent.
      Jacquelyn Piro is pleasant enough as the resident ingenue, the young script reader who turns out to be Norma's rival. Allen Fitzpatrick is suitably moving as Norma's faithful and protective servant, Max - singing "The Greatest Star of All" in Act I.
      Scenes that are meant to be comic relief, though, fail - such as a shopping spree for the young man to the tune of "The Lady's Paying" or a New Year's Eve party among young Hollywood hopefuls. Although the script has them down and out, they cavort as if they were in an Annette Funicello movie.
      The orchestrations, performed by a pit orchestra conducted by Lawrence Goldberg, are perhaps the best achievement of the evening.
      And, of course, it is a joy to see Clark singing so well. Her playing here is a reminder that her contributions to the films "Goodbye Mr. Chips" and "Finian's Rainbow" were underrated jewels. Nearing the end of her 50-city tour, she has now played Desmond longer than any other actress.
      This scaled-down, touring, version of "Sunset Boulevard," with all its flaws, remains a great theatrical curiosity. If you don't add it to your repertoire now, you'll probably never get another chance.