Sunset Boulevard [Mandy Gonzalez] – 29 October 2024

It was an honor and a privilege to see Mandy Gonzalez perform the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Despite the honor, acclaim, and prestige of Nicole Scherzinger as the primary casting choice, I enjoyed the realness and raw emotion that Mandy Gonzalez brought to a character whose primary problem is not her ego, but that she is tortured by it. Though the process and product of a recorded album will always have more polish by nature, I found Scherzinger as recorded on the album to bring an energy that was more smooth and certain—a beautiful singing performance that didn’t contain the acting nuance that I experienced in Gonzalez’s performance. Before I go any further into the show itself, I want to acknowledge that in this performance, Jimin Moon played Joe Gillis (typically Tom Francis) and Sydney Jones played Betty Schaefer (typically Grace Hodgett Young). For me, the “magic in the making” of this show is that these understudies were incredibly well cast for their roles, integrated into the difficult camera-ography of the show seamlessly and precisely, and deserve recognition for their breathtaking talent and nuance.

Director Jamie Lloyd’s obsession with the black-and-white aesthetic, film noir stylistic atmosphere, and clever use of shadow play (which I last saw in A Doll House), has finally been given a platform where it can be fully realized. Sunset Boulevard’s thematic content about moving making lends itself to the live camera feeds that make this aesthetic frighteningly close and hard to look away from. The score is haunting, and seeing the color drained out of the world goes a long way to supporting the depth of how trapped Joe feels by Norma (and how trapped Norma feels by herself). The live camera work was masterful, including rack focuses, characters looking over their shoulders, perspectives not discernable to the audience from the staging, and a true respect for the arduous process of filmmaking. Jamie Lloyd’s directing style is purposeful, and every frame the audience sees does not contain anything accidental. The cinematography draws the eye and makes sure the audience knows which elements of the characters are performative and which are genuine emotion. Fabian Aloise’s choreography was messy and chaotic at times, but also showcased the individual talents of ensemble members and their ability to work as a well-oiled machine.

In addition to Mandy Gonzalez, Jimin Moon, and Sydney Jones, Max (David Thaxton) gave a striking vocal performance, reminiscent of classic musicals like Les Miserables that blur the lines between protagonists and villains. The orchestrations (David Cullen and Andrew Lloyd Weber) shone more in the second act, the full instrumentation sans tracks and electronics added grandeur, the fog machine was always revealing and obscuring, the shadow play on the proscenium arch and floor was exquisite, the sound design (Adam Fisher) was engaging and clear, and the lighting design (Jack Knowles) proved that well placed cues and creative angles can still be striking even without colors and gobos and lots of obvious movement. The greatest magic of this production was that without some of the distractions of technology that directors and designers use because they have it and they can, the show felt driven by the characters. The story was clear and easy to follow. The intense emotionality of the characters was understandable. Motivations were easy to parse out. What the audience saw in every moment was deliberately calculated to advance the plot and call on the audience’s humanity, rather than the excitement of what lighting designers in the industry call “flash and trash.”

Showing the audience where to look and guiding our gaze on what to see sets the production apart from its contemporaries by demanding that these characters be understood. It is especially powerful because a character like Norma Desmond is hard for people with limited experience with mental health challenges to fully process. The frightening reality of our closeness to her in Jamie Lloyd’s imaging is a journey worth taking. The production is so methodically precise, and the selection of all involved collaborators is such a perfect fit. Support Mandy Gonzalez, and understudies including Jimin Moon and Sydney Jones. It’s the Gestalt that makes this Sunset Boulevard revival what it is. The production as a collective is, “the greatest star of all.”

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.