Writer and director Morag Fullarton follows the winning formula she had with Casablanca: The Gin Joint with this, a deconstruction and homage of the classic Billy Wilder Hollywood satire.
There’s a potted history of the film’s casting choices: Mae West and various silent movie stars were originally pencilled in for the lead Norma Desmond, while Montgomery Clift was potentially co-star as Joe Gillis. Until the producers and director felt Gloria Swanson and William Holden had both the star power and gravitas. Then we’re plunged headfirst into the murky world of corruption and denial that is the film’s modus operandi.
The beautiful set design and costumes by Fraser Lappin are a maximalist dream, bringing the “too much?” aesthetic to the fore. It makes the visual gags- an invisible pipe organ, tossed aside bandages- even more vivid.
Juliet Cadzow has a ball doubling up as Swanson and Desmond, and is grounded as the former and wicked as the latter, while still eliciting sympathy for the faded narcissistic diva of the film. There’s fine support too from John Kielty as Joe Gillis/William Holden and Frances Thorburn as Betty Schaefer/Script Girl, with the requisite sweetness and sass.
Mark McDonnell is less surefooted as Max, Desmond’s creepy butler, but makes an amusing and extremely pointed Sheldrake, the venal movie producer who turned down Gone With the Wind.
Indeed, the whole cast take wonderful liberties with melodramatic tropes, and occasional overlapping narration , but it’s Cadzow’s show all the way.
While it’s fizzy, fun and frothy, the satirical barbs still resonate, as a contemporary audience is au fait with recent Hollywood sex scandals. The red carpet has visible blood stains, which can never be scrubbed off.
Photos by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan. At Perth Theatre until May 16th.
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