The Musical That Terrified Me
Our collective madness for fame.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard musical hit me like a storm, flooding me with bad energy and a sense of madness I couldn’t escape.
How can a musical be a play and a movie? It can’t. That’s the problem. And that’s also why I hated his latest Broadway creation, Sunset Boulevard.
Cinema is already artificial and plays even more so — the exaggerated version of movies. Musicals amplify this, and adding a parody on top created a layered artifice that felt hollow.
The misplaced darkness didn’t help. Watching it felt like being surrounded by cruel, robotic figures devoid of humanity, chasing illusions of popularity and wealth while craving love they’ll never receive for who they truly are.
The original film had class and subtlety — that’s why it worked. This version? According to my sister, a portrait of today’s Hollywood society. If that’s true, I’m terrified. They all seemed mad to the bone, caught in a game they’ll never stop playing, trapped in endless performances in which they can never be themselves.
Nicole Scherzinger, the female lead, lingered in my mind long after the show was over. The performance was so total that the line between actor and character seemed to dissolve — desperation for attention, fame and love radiating off the stage until I couldn’t tell where the role ended. Her undeniably beautiful voice was the only thing holding the musical together.
One moment was so bad, and I can’t remember exactly which, because after a while they all blurred together in my head, my eyes shone with incredulity.
My sister, noticing me typing furiously right after, asked, “Are you inspired?”
So bad it’s good doesn’t apply here. The musical felt desperate for laughter while highlighting the horrors of reality.
As the curtain fell, the audience erupted into applause, perhaps embracing the cleverness of the show’s self-aware critique of actors. To me, it felt more like applauding the status-quo itself — celebrating the emptiness rather than questioning it.
The musical left me unsettled, wondering what drives us into these roles in the first place.
Maybe the point isn’t to condemn but to understand. Fame, like theatre, is a mirror for our hunger to be seen, loved, remembered. If Sunset Boulevard left me haunted, it’s because I saw not just actors onstage, but the rest of us too — trapped in ceaseless acts, hoping someone will notice who we are beneath the act.
