Coliseum,London[br]A glittering Glenn Close is ready once again for her close-up as Norma DesmondIt is more than 20 years since Glenn Close first starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard. It says a mighty 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 runt.
Billy Wilder’s 1950 film, on which Lloyd Webber’s musical is based, and 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 advance to mediate 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 compliment of the hero wearing Vicuña. Yet the score – tango, and waltz,ballad – is not sceptical. It is lusciously realised here. This is a romance, though a disingenuous one.
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Source: theguardian.com