Nicole Scherzinger Stuns in Brilliant, Fiery Broadway Revival

Yes, it’s a revival of a 31-year-old musical based on a 74-year-old black-and-white film. And both are as dimly remembered by young audiences as the main character, Norma Desmond, is by cruel Hollywood.

But age is just a number, right, Norma? “Sunset Boulevard,” which opened Sunday night at the St. James Theatre, is the most exciting show on Broadway in years.

So much energy, freshness and relentless intensity run through the director’s veins. Jamie Lloyd’s surprising production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical from start to finish, you’d swear it was brand new.

And adrenaline rushes through our bloodstream every time the extraordinary Nicole Scherzinger, in her wonderful Broadway debut, moans a note.

She is otherworldly like the lonely Norma. A revelation. And when the former Pussycat Doll sings Lloyd Webber’s stirring ballads, “With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” as the mist swirls dreamily behind her, the audience practically levitates.

The entire production leaves you breathless. We are transfixed from the moment the giant video screen, the chandelier of this staging, descends from the rafters with the image of actor Tom Francis’ dangerous eyes as screenwriter Joe Gillis heads toward his doom.

From then on, Joe and the ticket buyers in the dark are sucked into Norma’s delusional fantasy: that she is still the biggest star of them all; that will make its long-awaited return; that his whole sad life is a great movie.

Very entertaining, too.

Anyone who saw the 1950 Billy Wilder classic starring Gloria Swanson, or saw the show on Broadway in the 1990s and 2017 with Glenn Close, might worry that the prescription on their glasses is out of date. Lloyd’s production is unrecognizable.

Call it “No-Set Boulevard.” The director has discarded the large mansion with its endless staircase and has left only a couple of chairs. There are no lots or sound stages of 1930s Hollywood. Scherzinger wears a silky black dress (costumes by Soutra Gilmour) instead of a turban and a form-concealing shawl.

Some filler songs have been cut, such as “The Lady’s Paying.” Good! And anachronistic dances have been added, a la “The Robot”. Norma, desperate to be half her age, sometimes talks as if she were filming an Instagram reel.

A sensual dancer, young Norma (Hannah Yun Chamberlain), tickles her and tortures her with memories of her glory days. Choreographer Fabian Aloise’s movements range from the attractive to the chaotic.

It’s a lot. But somehow, it all works magnificently.

That’s because the tragic story of fame’s path to ruin is as true and relevant as ever. As Joe scathingly observes, “The world is full of Joes and Norms.”

At first, a frustrated Joe is just a writer who can’t get a job, until one day, when he is chased by thugs through Sunset and stumbles upon the mansion of Norma Desmond, an eccentric silent film star who has been forgotten. with the arrival of sound cinema.

He hires Joe to fix his horrible “Salomé” script, which he plans to be his return to Hollywood. With no other choice, she moves into the cavernous house, ruled by her butler Max (David Thaxton), and together Norma and Joe hurtle toward disaster.

Lloyd’s, by the way, is the first production of “Sunset Boulevard” I’ve seen in which the scenes involving Joe, Betty Schaefer (a strong Grace Hodgett Young), the third party in a messy love triangle, Artie (Diego Andrés Rodríguez ) and her Los Angeles writer friends are more than boring drinking breaks for the actress who plays Norma.

Cinematic close-ups of their expressive faces as they fall in and out of love, set to Lloyd Webber’s expansive score, add real flesh to sections that can easily sink.

At the same time, lighting designer Jack Knowles uses deep shadows and highlights to amplify the drama with haunting images straight out of a silent film.

Francis, fiery and velvety-voiced in her Broadway debut, walks away with the musical’s most talkative character at the end of the second act.

A feat that involves video cameras, fresh air and a mountain of logistics, it is exciting, tremendously fun… and will infuriate some people. After all, it wouldn’t be Broadway if someone didn’t complain about the videos.

But the show belongs to the titanic Scherzinger, who makes Norma especially proud and wild. Her confidence and burning desire to succeed make her fall far beyond that of a dusty hermit.

As I watched her flowing arms as she sang “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” it occurred to me that the actress was channeling the macabre, lovelorn ghost of Michael Crawford.

“The Phantom of the Opera,” of course, ran across the street at the Majestic Theater for 35 years until it closed last spring.

Now, Lloyd Webber is back on 44th Street with a bona fide new stage star, and it seems fitting. As Norma says, “back to the place I was born to be!”