THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Following on from his critical and commercial success with a revamped Evita, Jamie Lloyd has now joined up with international pop diva Nicole Scherzinger for a radical new take on this 1993 musical. It’s by turns startling, refreshing - and dismaying. This is because when you dump the whole 1950s Hollywood aesthetic that so defined Billy Wilder’s classic movie, you need to replace it with something just as resonant.
What he’s replaced it with is straight off a Vogue cover shoot. It’s sexy, modern, slick, and totally monochrome and Scherzinger is a stunner, but in the end this is fashion, and fashion is what goes out of fashion, to paraphrase Jean Cocteau. What’s lost is how key the ‘50s Hollywood setting, and that historical moment, were to the story, which deftly veered between film noir and black comedy. This is not a sin, as every time a director is brave, as Lloyd is here, there are swings as well as roundabouts.
Now firmly established, you could say Lloyd has his own aesthetic. Of late he (and his regular designer Soutra Gilmour) appear to hate sets and period costumes. He loves a rehearsal room aesthetic and an artfully bare stage. He loves to sit his ensemble in chairs on a line which fills the proscenium arch. Or he lines them up as if waiting for bus where they quickly dispense their lyrics or lines. In many ways this is liberating, it saves time, there are no clunky set changes, but it also curiously lends an energy to the songs. Previous productions drowned in recitative, as well as fabrics, but here the lyrics now seem more urgent and alive.
The real find here is Tom Francis as Joe, the struggling Hollywood writer who stumbles on Norma Desmond’s faded mansion where the forgotten silent-film star draws him into her deranged fantasy of plotting a comeback. She is abetted by her old director, now serving as her chauffeur/assistant - David Thaxton is creepily powerful here.
Francis is the best Joe I’ve seen and crucially has enough charisma to hold his own with Nicole. He’s gutsy and real and vocally a wonder. Lloyd amps up the character and does this by a full embrace of ‘live’ cameras on the stage projected onto a ginormous screen. Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom’s ‘cinematography’ here is a star of this show in itself and brings ‘cinema into theatre’ as they’ve claimed. In a great coup-de-theatre at the start Act 2 (which I won’t spoil) Francis’ travels, mostly in fierce close-up, are a real test of his acting chops, and he totally shines. Equally good is Grace Hodgett Young as Betty Schaefer, Joe’s writer colleague and nascent girlfriend. She elevates this under-cooked supporting role like none before her.
But the fans are here for Nicole, and they do go wild. Vocally she’s probably the best star who has sung the role but is needlessly over mic’d for her two famous numbers. She also belts them more like a pop star than an actor, but that’s forgivable. Gilmour has dispensed with Norma’s signature turban and the gaudy “robe de chambre” of previous productions. Barefoot and clad in a black, elegant, satin slip or cocktail dress, Scherzinger looks stunning and moves with a panther’s grace. This Norma even does the splits.
Fabian Aloise’s choreography is central to the whole concept too and he makes this lively ensemble fill the empty stage with spiky and urgent steps. The orchestra, under music supervisor Alan Williams, are top class and remind us that ALW wrote some great tunes.
Central to Wilder’s screenplay though was that Joe is repelled by the old star’s sexual advances. Here this is a problem as Norma is a killer Pussycat Doll. There’s a credibility problem you’ve just created for yourself, Jamie.
The whole thing has the cold chic of Ivo van Hove crossed with a Madison Avenue glamour shoot, but the videography reinvents it and interestingly allows the music and the actors to come through.
