Daniel M. Lavery @daniel_m_lavery
9h
just prevented my dog from throwing up on the bed after I just changed the sheets and I feel as good as if I just won an award
@grace.lavery.pangolin
Last night, I got to see Nicole Scherzinger’s turn as Norma Desmond in Jamie Lloyd’s adaptation of Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s SUNSET BOULEVARD musical. “Turn” seems an unavoidable word: across the street from the St. James Theater, Audra McDonald was giving Mama Rose in Sondheim’s GYPSY, a role written in 1959 (surely) with Gloria Swanson’s Norma (from Billy Wilder’s 1950 movie) in mind. GYPSY ends, of course, with the stage mom delivering arguably Broadway’s single greatest number, “Rose’s Turn,” the word “turn” freighted with more meaning that in can bear: an act, a negated recompense (“when is it my turn?”), a souring, as of milk. D. A. Miller’s reading of “Rose’s Turn” in PLACE FOR US is utterly masterful, and complete in a way that none of the magnificent performances of that song have been, albeit that having blasted the “Turn” seems to have been, understandably, installed as one of the major archives of Broadway divas, and seems in my experience likelier than any other song to generate passionate defenses and critiques of individual performances. I wish I had seen Audra’s work: I bet it was magnificent, and if she’s still playing next time I’m back in the city, I’ll see it.