It is more than 20 years since Glenn Close first starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard. It says a great deal about her sandblasting panache that she could both then and now be convincing as an “older woman”. It may also say something mildly encouraging about the way women are viewed. The point at which they are totally written off has extended a little.
Billy Wilder’s 1950 film, on which Lloyd Webber’s musical is based, was a sour and witty thing. A satire on Hollywood and celebrity obsession, it now looks all the more wry for treating what we have come to think of as a Technicolor subject in black and white. Lloyd Webber’s dramatisation is verbally faithful. The script and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton stick to the film, right down to the praise of the hero wearing Vicuña. Yet the score – tango, waltz, ballad – is not sceptical. It is lusciously realised here. This is a romance, though a disingenuous one.
Lonny Price’s production is semi-staged. James Noone’s design supplies overlapping scaffoldings and a gigantic chandelier. When the police cars come roaring in, their headlights are hand-held lamps. Tuneful and (as required by the script) a bit bland, Michael Xavier supplies himself at one point in swimming trunks.
In her Salome kit (Desmond has sent Paramount a rotten script about the deadly dancer), Close, with her big and yearning voice, is all silver and dangle. It’s as if that chandelier has sprouted legs. She also has a black gown that makes her look like a vampire bat. She pulls Xavier on top of her with hands that are bandaged up after she has tried to cut her wrists. She makes you feel the clamp of her hands on the back of her prey. It is easier to believe in her self-delusion than it is to credit the idea she has been neglected. Who would want to? Silly question: a society that minds more about fame than talent.
