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Two thoughts came to Lynne Wintersteller's mind after she learned she'd won the role of Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard."
First were her memories of the classic 1950 noir film upon which Lloyd Webber based his musical adaptation.
Second was Queeny, a mysterious but friendly woman who lived in Wintersteller's middle-class Sandusky, Ohio, neighborhood. Queeny was an aging woman who rarely changed out of her pajamas, wore a long caftan with slipper heels, avoided daylight and kept filled candy bowls on her living-room coffee table for the neighborhood children.
"I always thought growing up that she was a nice lady," Wintersteller said. "Now I realize she was a bit of an eccentric."
After weeks of rehearsal for Pioneer Theatre Company's production of this musical play, opening April 29, the cast and director John Going said they've come to realize that there's a bit of Norma Desmond in all of us. Some of us are born delusional. Some achieve delusion. But most all of us at some point in our lives have delusion thrust upon us.
"What I see in it is the lesson that the world changes, but we don't always change with it," Going said. "It's about regret and sadness, to be sure. But it's also about not fitting in as much as we'd like to."
Gloria Swanson's washed-out film star Norma Desmond — as directed by Billy Wilder — has for decades been regarded as the ultimate expression of a type: the soul of former greatness so desperate it can survive only inside its own bubble of lies and denial. Without that emotional context, Norma's famous line "I'm ready for my close-up" wouldn't tingle the spine.
It's made-to-order material for Lloyd Webber's histrionic talent. Lloyd Webber's early 1990s musical wasn't the first attempt at a stage adaptation of the film. Stephen Sondheim started a similar project during the early 1960s, but later abandoned it after Wilder advised him the story was best approached as an opera. Director Going assures potential audience members that Lloyd Webber's adaptation remains true to Wilder's original vision, even as it maintains its noir style and spirit throughout.
Musical numbers and accompanying music running throughout the production are almost nonstop. The shadowplay of light-and-dark tones on the stage is thick. True to Lloyd Webber's melodic trademark, the songs plumb the extremes of even the most capable singer's range. With its lavish, difficult music, formidable sets and large cast of 28, the production wasn't easy to assemble, the director said.
"Lloyd Webber and his writers were smart enough to realize they had a very hot property to begin with," Going said. "Almost none of the dialogue from the movie is altered."
What's easy, at least for Wintersteller, is the sheer fun of crafting Norma Desmond's character from scratch. Wintersteller likens her to a "female Phantom"or "female Sweeney Todd."
"She's crazy, but you can't play her crazy," Wintersteller said. "The challenge is not to go overboard with her, but to make every line sound rational. My job is to make her honestly crazy, and I'm having a ball. It's total freedom, as an actress, to see where my madness goes."
It's just as important to highlight the "everyman" aspect of Norma's trapped sidekick, says Benjamin Eakeley, who plays the other central role as down-on-his-luck screenwriter Joe Gillis. The proverbial fallen man, Gillis' is the play's lone character who could still escape the torch songs of Norma's madness.
If you don't know Wilder's film, the plot's dark pleasures will unfold for you for the first time. If you do, you can appreciate how Lloyd Webber crafts his songs with all the noir density of the movie. "There's a lot of coolness onstage, but a lot of underscored danger, too," Eakeley said.
Twitter: @artsalt
Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Sunset Boulevard'
When • April 29-May 14. Monday-Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m., with Saturday matinee, 2 p.m.
Where• Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, 300 S. 1400 East, University of Utah campus, Salt Lake City
Info • $34-$54, with children K-12 half-price Monday and Tuesday. Call 801-581-6961 for more information or visit http://www.pioneertheatre.org.