Theatre Review: SUNSET BLVD.

SUNSET BLVD.

Produced by Opera Australia and gwb entertainment

Book and Lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Director Paul Warwick Griffin

Photo Credit Daniel Boud

Sydney Opera House until November 1

Reviewed by Ron Lee, CSP

If you’re a fan of Billy Wilder’s 1950 film noir, you’ll be curious about the musical version.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's SUNSET BLVD. starring Sarah Brightman, has opened at the Sydney Opera House in the Joan Sutherland Theatre.

Joe Gillis is a down-on-his-luck screenwriter in Hollywood. His script submission to Paramount has been rejected and a couple of repo men are after his car. In an effort to shake them off, he drives into the garage of a seemingly deserted mansion on Sunset Boulevard. He finds that the property is inhabited by silent screen star, Norma Desmond and her servant, Max Von Mayerling. Norma is writing the script for a film that stars herself as Salome. Joe finds odd the thought of a fifty-year-old woman playing a teenager, but Norma convinces him to stay to help her with the script. She sees it as the vehicle for, not her comeback, but her “return”. From there, the plot thickens. 

The dialogue remains faithful to the movie but some scenes have been abbreviated because of the limitations of being on a stage. 

This production has eighteen musical numbers, and the Opera Australia Orchestra provides a feast for the ears.

While I was engaged and present during the songs, I don't remember any of them. In fact, I walked out of the theatre humming a song from another musical. 

Morgan Large's set design is masterful. The transitions between the scenes seem seamless, effortlessly moving from the internals of the mansion to Paramount Sound Stage 18, to a screenwriters’ office to Schwab’s Drugstore. Large has also put Sarah Brightman in some stunning costumes.

Tim Draxl as Joe and Ashleigh Rubenach as Norma’s antithesis, Betty Schaefer, are outstanding. They reveal their chops as triple threats. Also solidly impressive is veteran Australian actor, Robert Grubb, as Max, who grounds the action that swirls around him and makes the most of his opportunities in the spotlight. In her first appearance at the Sydney Opera House, Sarah Brightman is very “box office” and should attract punters to the production.

Throughout, I wondered how they were going to do the swimming pool scene and how Norma was going to say, "Alright Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up”.

Ironically, the stage musical interpretation lacks the intensity of the film because much of the power of the film is in the characters’ close-ups, especially at the end.