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Post by alece10 on Sept 21, 2023 23:09:49 GMT
It seems like a logistical nightmare to try to do it live. The risk of extraneous noise or interruption by unsuspecting members of the public is significant. Not to mention the risk that fans might try to get themselves into the show by hijacking the moment Then, of course, there is the challenge of producing a consistent sound [b I don't think it was live until he comes through the door into the stalls but it must have been filmed recently as the pavements looked very wet. But it was damm clever and got huge applause. But if true what is said above I'm even more impressed. |
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Post by mrbarnaby on Sept 21, 2023 23:11:18 GMT
Sounds like a version of the trick he did with A Dolls House where Jessica Chastain walked out of the dock door into the street
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Post by mattnyc on Sept 21, 2023 23:19:50 GMT
Tom said tonight that the title song is all filmed and sung live. If it rains they have people with umbrellas with them. He said come back tomorrow since it’ll never be the same twice.
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Post by max on Sept 21, 2023 23:31:54 GMT
Well these curtain call production shots will go around social media, and in the national press like wildfire. There's nothing like a stunning beauty 'making ugly' and I so admire NS for throwing herself into this. Also, whatever you think of Lloyd's work/style it's admirable that he is able to inspire performers to believe his vision, and trust him to throw away every scrap of vanity - whether it's NS in bare feet, with bloodied hands and neck, or Tom effectively doing the end of the show in his pants. It sure does intrigue.
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Post by westendwhistledown on Sept 21, 2023 23:32:53 GMT
FYI for anyone wanting to stage door - it’s manic. There are security shouting ‘IF Nicole comes out it’s 1 item each and she’s only signing show merch (basically don’t bring your Pussycat Dolls albums to be signed), no hugs, no handshakes, no conversation - it’s not a Q&A and no video messages for your cousins birthday’.
They were also trying to get the paps away from stage door saying that the queue was for ticket holders only which was nice! They’re selling programmes afterwards outside at stage door - by saying Nicole only signs show merch it’s just an extra way to make money as people will panic and buy a programme.
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Post by j0shwaterfield on Sept 21, 2023 23:36:54 GMT
Had a quick look through the thread but cant see anything specifically yet. Any news on what the "spotlight" seats mean?! Cant wait for this, the photos/audios on twitter from tonight are stunning.
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5,881 posts
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Post by mrbarnaby on Sept 21, 2023 23:45:35 GMT
Have to say that the orchestra sounds amazing on the Twitter clips I’ve heard
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Post by mattnyc on Sept 22, 2023 0:04:14 GMT
I’m just staring at the ratings above and have NO IDEA what to click lol
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Post by couldileaveyou on Sept 22, 2023 0:23:53 GMT
Had a quick look through the thread but cant see anything specifically yet. Any news on what the "spotlight" seats mean?! Cant wait for this, the photos/audios on twitter from tonight are stunning. They're the seats for under 30s, NHS etc |
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Post by toomasj on Sept 22, 2023 2:16:44 GMT
For anyone thinking of rushing out now and spending circa. £150 on a ticket on the basis of a first night reaction from fans on Theatreboard - who paid very good money to attend a first preview - I would strongly advise against it. I have done both sides. We all know emotions run high after a show in the moment, people say things like “best version ever”, then have the post-show comedown and reflect.
I personally know three separate parties who attended tonight and absolutely loathed it.
I think it’s exactly what I predicted. Jamie Lloyd production, doing Jamie Lloyd tropes. If you like Jamie Lloyd’s work you’ll love it, if not it’s like a theatrical hell.
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Post by chernjam on Sept 22, 2023 3:38:54 GMT
well hunting down clips on Twitter and just a minute of As if we never said goodbye and a minute of the finale were exciting to hear. Damn they better record this.
Thank you all for sharing your reviews. Been excited about this on this side of the Atlantic almost like I was when the World Premiere happened in 1993 and couldn't wait to get the New York Times the next day (even though I knew they'd hate on it) just for any info on it.
Can't say I'm disappointed that "The Lady's Paying" was cut. From all looks it was going for a darker tone overall, so not shocked that would go.
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Post by couldileaveyou on Sept 22, 2023 7:38:09 GMT
It is a hugely engrossing, self-ironic, fast-paced production in which the whole is better than the sum of its parts. {Spoiler - click to view}
As the overture starts playing, Young Norma, who has been standing behind the curtain for a good ten minutes, does a little interpretative dance. The stage is bare, except for Nicole sitting at the back of the stage with her back to the audience, and a body bag in the middle. As the music goes on Joe opens and crawls out of the body bag. The whole "Let's Have Lunch" sequence is staged with characters coming on front stage, delivering their lines, and moving back: it's a very young cast, modernly dressed in black and white and looking like a zara advert. During the car chase, Joe holds a wheel-cum-camera as he sits in front stage while his face is projected on the LED screen and credits start appearing on it too, culminating with the title as the Sunset Boulevard motif starts playing.
Nicole looks like a star, and she's never more regal than when she stands there doing nothing. Her voice is brilliant, and the acting is very Real Housewifes of Beverly Hills. A lot of fingers snapping, hair flipping, and looking into the camera as if she were in The Office. Eg, when Joe warns her that he is very expensive she replies something like "Don't worry about money, HON–EYYY". Some lines are delivered directly into the camera and she got a lot of laughs, not sure if they were intentional. When Joe suggests that the audience doesn't want to see her in every scene of Salome, she replies "Of course they do" and then do the camera “What else would they have come for?” *wink wink*
You couldn't drop her in Trevor Nunn's production and expect her to be great, but it's a performance that works in this context, although you never get the sense that she used to be a movie star. She acts and talks like every woman in reality tv shows, and even when a more organic character emerges as act two goes on, I think we never really come to appreciate she used to be a Hollywood star – let alone wondering why someone looking so young and sexy and acting like everyone in showbusiness is not working in showbusiness anymore. "Nothing's wrong with being forty" (the line has been updated) "unless you're acting twenty" etc etc
The only bit that really doesn't work – imo – is Salome, in which she does a whole pussycat routine with even the split and sultrily rolling around the stage with spread legs like Velma in All That Jazz. It's a performance that works because it builds on NS' persona and career, I'd be curious to see if Rachel Tucker is directed to do the same or has a different approach, because some of the lines make sense only if NS delivers them. Young Norma is quite charming, works better than the Lonny Price's version from a few years ago, although she is not fully necessary.
I liked the use of the screen and the way the conversations at Paramount – Sheldrake telling Max they want the car, Joe meeting Betty again, Max telling Joe the truth – only appear on screen, while Norma remains center stage. She never leaves the stage for the whole of act 2. DeMille never appears, his face is just a gigantic silhouette on the screen, and it works.
Jamie Lloyd makes a lot of bold choices, and most of them work. The entr'acte and title song, as discussed, is entirely done on screen, starting with Joe chilling in his dressing room and watching the scene in which Gloria Swanson engulfs William Holden in her arms (the equivalent of act 1 ending) before meeting his fellow castmemebers as he walks through the backstage and sings the title song while he exits the stage door, goes around the block, enters the Savoy, goes down the endless stairs and finally enters the stalls and climbs on stage for the final note. It's trashy, it's gimmicky, I loved it, it was fantastic, and the audience ate it up. Biggest ovation till curtain call, got a full standing ovation, unlike "As If We Never Said Goodbye", which was partial.
Again, a lot of the choices sound ridiculous when described (and even when you see them), but most of them actually work. In the whole orchestral section between "The Phone Call" and Betty's arrival at the house Max, Joe and Norma run endlessly around the stage. When Joe tells Betty "That's Norma Desmond, That's Norma Desmond, That's Norma Desmon" the whole cast appears on stage, dressed in NS' black négligée. As the confrontation between Joe and Betty climaxes, all characters start running in a circle. Again, makes no sense, but it's fantastic. I think it kinda works only if you're willing to buy into it. I was ironically puzzled for most of act 1, but really engrossed in act 2.
The script and score have been trimmed, although it's not always done consistently. In the "Salome" reprise in the final scene, Norma says "Mad about the boy", but it makes no sense since she never presented Joe with the cigarette case before The Perfect Year – in which she really does tango.
For some reasons, they really try to make you feel for Artie, which is odd because I doubt anyone has ever spent a single thought on him. He dramatically walks around the stage as Joe and Betty sing Too Much in Love To Care. When they kiss, the huge LED screen on the back – think about the mirror in A Chorus Line or the original production of Cabaret – shows a close-up of Artie with a single tear rolling down his cheek. You can't make stuff like this up.
David Thaxton is usually brilliant at making boring characters shine (eg Giorgio in Passion), but he's not quite there yet, it was a lot of looking dour into the camera and not much else, but he's a fantastic actor and I'm surely he'll be great eventually.
Tom Francis is wonderful. He looks and acts a bit like Jeremy Allen White, wonderful voice, and charismatic stage presence. He is a bit young to be so disillusioned, but again everyone in the cast is too young. Grace Hodgett Young is a very good Betty too.
The orchestra is wonderful and it's very well sung.
It's not quite camp, but it has a minimalist sort of camp that makes it work. The purists will hate it – which is very fair, it's doesn't always work, and NS is not a Norma Desmond – but I had a blast. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2023 7:48:13 GMT
Staging wise, it sounds as if this is a mix of standard issue Jamie Lloyd + a little van Hove?
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Post by couldileaveyou on Sept 22, 2023 7:49:44 GMT
Staging wise, it sounds as if this is a mix of standard issue Jamie Lloyd + a little van Hove? Yeah it's Jamie Lloyd's no set no props minimalism + Ivo Van Hove's All About Eve/WSS use of cameras |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 22, 2023 8:13:09 GMT
It is a hugely engrossing, self-ironic, fast-paced production in which the whole is better than the sum of its parts. {Spoiler - click to view}
As the overture starts playing, Young Norma, who has been standing behind the curtain for a good ten minutes, does a little interpretative dance. The stage is bare, except for Nicole sitting at the back of the stage with her back to the audience, and a body bag in the middle. As the music goes on Joe opens and crawls out of the body bag. The whole "Let's Have Lunch" sequence is staged with characters coming on front stage, delivering their lines, and moving back: it's a very young cast, modernly dressed in black and white and looking like a zara advert. During the car chase, Joe holds a wheel-cum-camera as he sits in front stage while his face is projected on the LED screen and credits start appearing on it too, culminating with the title as the Sunset Boulevard motif starts playing.
Nicole looks like a star, and she's never more regal than when she stands there doing nothing. Her voice is brilliant, and the acting is very Real Housewifes of Beverly Hills. A lot of fingers snapping, hair flipping, and looking into the camera as if she were in The Office. Eg, when Joe warns her that he is very expensive she replies something like "Don't worry about money, HON–EYYY". Some lines are delivered directly into the camera and she got a lot of laughs, not sure if they were intentional. When Joe suggests that the audience doesn't want to see her in every scene of Salome, she replies "Of course they do" and then do the camera “What else would they have come for?” *wink wink*
You couldn't drop her in Trevor Nunn's production and expect her to be great, but it's a performance that works in this context, although you never get the sense that she used to be a movie star. She acts and talks like every woman in reality tv shows, and even when a more organic character emerges as act two goes on, I think we never really come to appreciate she used to be a Hollywood star – let alone wondering why someone looking so young and sexy and acting like everyone in showbusiness is not working in showbusiness anymore. "Nothing's wrong with being forty" (the line has been updated) "unless you're acting twenty" etc etc
The only bit that really doesn't work – imo – is Salome, in which she does a whole pussycat routine with even the split and sultrily rolling around the stage with spread legs like Velma in All That Jazz. It's a performance that works because it builds on NS' persona and career, I'd be curious to see if Rachel Tucker is directed to do the same or has a different approach, because some of the lines make sense only if NS delivers them. Young Norma is quite charming, works better than the Lonny Price's version from a few years ago, although she is not fully necessary.
I liked the use of the screen and the way the conversations at Paramount – Sheldrake telling Max they want the car, Joe meeting Betty again, Max telling Joe the truth – only appear on screen, while Norma remains center stage. She never leaves the stage for the whole of act 2. DeMille never appears, his face is just a gigantic silhouette on the screen, and it works.
Jamie Lloyd makes a lot of bold choices, and most of them work. The entr'acte and title song, as discussed, is entirely done on screen, starting with Joe chilling in his dressing room and watching the scene in which Gloria Swanson engulfs William Holden in her arms (the equivalent of act 1 ending) before meeting his fellow castmemebers as he walks through the backstage and sings the title song while he exits the stage door, goes around the block, enters the Savoy, goes down the endless stairs and finally enters the stalls and climbs on stage for the final note. It's trashy, it's gimmicky, I loved it, it was fantastic, and the audience ate it up. Biggest ovation till curtain call, got a full standing ovation, unlike "As If We Never Said Goodbye", which was partial.
Again, a lot of the choices sound ridiculous when described (and even when you see them), but most of them actually work. In the whole orchestral section between "The Phone Call" and Betty's arrival at the house Max, Joe and Norma run endlessly around the stage. When Joe tells Betty "That's Norma Desmond, That's Norma Desmond, That's Norma Desmon" the whole cast appears on stage, dressed in NS' black négligée. As the confrontation between Joe and Betty climaxes, all characters start running in a circle. Again, makes no sense, but it's fantastic. I think it kinda works only if you're willing to buy into it. I was ironically puzzled for most of act 1, but really engrossed in act 2.
The script and score have been trimmed, although it's not always done consistently. In the "Salome" reprise in the final scene, Norma says "Mad about the boy", but it makes no sense since she never presented Joe with the cigarette case before The Perfect Year – in which she really does tango.
David Thaxton is usually brilliant at making boring characters shine (eg Giorgio in Passion), but he's not quite there yet, it was a lot of looking dour into the camera and not much else, but he's a fantastic actor and I'm surely he'll be great eventually.
The orchestra is wonderful and it's very well sung.
It's not quite camp, but it has a minimalist sort of camp that makes it work. The purists will hate it – which is very fair, it's doesn't always work, and NS is not a Norma Desmond – but I had a blast. Thanks for the detail couldileaveyou, it sounds crazy! |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 22, 2023 8:15:10 GMT
They’ve ditched The Lady’s Paying but kept Eternal Youth in then… is it done comedically?
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Post by couldileaveyou on Sept 22, 2023 8:17:20 GMT
They’ve ditched The Lady’s Paying but kept Eternal Youth in then… is it done comedically? no no they cut that too |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 22, 2023 8:17:39 GMT
Ah. makes sense.
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Post by danb on Sept 22, 2023 8:19:34 GMT
Without trawling through 40 pages, can anyone tell me what the random days off are that NS has? Am I safe if I buy the 7th Oct?
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 22, 2023 8:28:45 GMT
Just had a FB reminder, it’s 8 years ago today that Glenn was announced for the ENO revival.
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Post by robertb213 on Sept 22, 2023 8:42:40 GMT
Without trawling through 40 pages, can anyone tell me what the random days off are that NS has? Am I safe if I buy the 7th Oct? Nicole has Mondays off as scheduled. |
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Post by zephyrus on Sept 22, 2023 8:57:37 GMT
Sounds like a version of the trick he did with A Dolls House where Jessica Chastain walked out of the dock door into the street Oh, THAT's what happened at the end of A Doll's House! I was sitting in a good seat, but that final moment happened totally out of my sightline, and I imagine that was also the case for around 50% of the audience. I mean, I guessed that's what was happening - from the slightly amused reaction of people sitting in the other half of the theatre - but still... it was a bold (and somewhat infuriating) choice. |
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