For those of you unacquainted with Billy Wilder’s classic of the same name, Sunset Boulevard tells the story of Norma Desmond, an erstwhile Silent Film Siren whose best days are behind her. Living as a virtual recluse in her lavish mansion with butler, Max, Norma is striking, and undeniably Non Compos Mentis: i.e. not in her right mind. Mistaking him for the man who was hired to bury her beloved chimp, Norma meets Joe Gillis. Joe is a down-at-the-heels screenwriter in 1950’s Hollywood. In addition to struggling to make a career, a couple of goons are tracking him to repay a loan shark. Joe is just this side of desperate. When Norma offers respite if he’ll help with her script, it’s just too good to resist.
Norma keeps Joe on a short leash, he must sneak off to visit his agent, friends, and Betty, a sweet gal with an inside track. She wants to help him get his big break. Joe is fond of Norma, but she doesn’t make it easy for him. She’s too loopy to be practical, and it’s clear she’s got a major crush on Joe. When she isn’t throwing tantrums. He works on her script in earnest, but never sees a dime. She throws a New Year’s Party, and when he realizes he’s the only guest, runs off to a friend’s celebration. Things have gotten twisted, but he stays out of sympathy, and perhaps for the advantages.
I have never been able to decide if Andrew Lloyd Webber writes operas that play like musicals, or musicals that feel operatic. He can be clever and amusing, the numerous songs show versatility, intelligence and warmth. Webber never makes Norma the object of pity, though she seems to swing a wide arc between rage and desperate frailty. Sunset Boulevard paints a mural, evoking the unforgiving world Joe and Norma inhabit, making it easy to understand when they wind up in each others’ arms. There is certainly something eerie about her mansion that could just as easily be a museum (or mausoleum). But when Norma slips into a reverie about the oafish world and how it’s robbed the motion pictures of magic and power, you can’t ignore the truth of her words. Sunset Boulevard is a strange potion of extreme measures and what happens when there’s sparse kindness in a merciless town.
Sunset Boulevard is an engaging, often humorous, sorrowful experience that is masterful and meticulously staged. The actors are deeply invested, focused, charismatic. Director Allen Walker has gone with a less lavish set, but you’d hardly know. Walker has orchestrated the various elements, with grace and purpose. I was spellbound from start to finish.
Tarrant Actors Regional Theatre presents Sunset Boulevard, playing May 11th-27th, 2018. Fort Worth Community Arts Center: Sanders Theatre. 1300 Gendy Street, Fort Worth, Texas 76107. (682) 231-0082. wwwthetart.com