Spotlight on... Glenn Close

One of the most prolific stars of both stage and screen, Glenn Close has been showered with adoration and awards in equal measure during the course of her lengthy career, including three Tony Awards and six Oscar nominations. She was last seen on the Great White Way in the 2014 Broadway revival of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, in which she gave a movingly fragile performance opposite John Lithgow in the more intimate setting of the John Golden Theatre. Since then she made her Olivier Award-nominated West End debut at the London Coliseum, in what became one of the most eagerly anticipated theatrical events of 2016, as she reprised her Tony-winning role of Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's much-loved musical Sunset Boulevard. It was as if we never said goodbye, as critics and aficionados alike swooned at the spectacle of Ms. Close bringing Norma back to life over twenty years after her original Broadway outing. The West End engagement was glittering with nostalgia and also welcomed newcomers like myself, who had missed out the first time around, to discover a new-found appreciation for one of the most iconic performances in musical theatre. It was only a matter of time before the bright lights of Broadway beckoned and Close would indeed answer the call and bring this new production over the pond to the grand stage of the Palace Theatre, where it continues to play its limited engagement through to June 25, 2017.

Glenn Close would be the first to tell you that she is not the greatest singer to ever grace the Broadway stage, but what she lacks in vocal ability, she more than makes up for in her prowess at storytelling through song. The way she may choose to emphasise a word or a lyric by speaking it, rather than following the traditional melody, entices us to take note and glimpse into her tortured soul as Norma Desmond. She revels in the physicality of the forgotten silent movie star, incorporating all the exaggerated melodrama of that Hollywood genre into her movements and facial expressions. She knows how to draw a laugh in this respect, without going too far and slipping into the realm of parody. She proves her comic talents once again with the musical number "Eternal Youth Is Worth a Little Suffering" as she undergoes the miracle beauty treatment that will supposedly make her fit to play a 16-year old Salome. Of course, her renditions of "With One Look" and, in particular, "As If We Never Said Goodbye" are the show-stealing cries that are drowned in yearning and the hopeless desire for yesteryear. After the latter number, Close takes the extended applause (and standing ovation, if the night I attended is anything to go by) as if she has just won that elusive Oscar after her six previous nominations. The margin between character and actor blurs in this beautiful moment and speaks volumes about how both are facing Hollywood's ill challenges of becoming an actress of a certain age. My only wish is that Hollywood and Broadway would create a few more of these immortal roles for those actors in their years to come.

Glenn Close made her Broadway debut in 1974 in Love For Love and would regularly appear on the Great White Way through to her breakthrough performance as Chairy Barnum in the 1980 Broadway premiere of Barnum, earning her a first Tony Award nomination. Although she did not win, she would not have to wait long until her first Tony acceptance speech which followed in 1984 after her performance as Annie in the original Broadway cast of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. After a brief outing in Michael Frayn's 1985 play Benefactors, her next Broadway highlight would be Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden, which earned her a second Tony Award in 1992. She then went on to reach Theatre Icon status with the original Broadway production of Sunset Boulevard in 1994, picking up her third Tony Award. She was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2016, undoubtedly due largely to her performance as Norma.

Her career on screen, has been equally impressive, especially in the 1980s during which she managed to pick up a total of five Academy Award nominations - The World According to Garp (1983), The Big Chill (1984), The Natural (1985), Fatal Attraction (1988) and Dangerous Liaisons (1989). Her sixth Oscar nomination came in 2012 thanks to a mesmerizing performance in Albert Nobbs, as she portrayed a woman disguised as a man in 19th century Ireland in order to work as a hotel butler and make a better living. Close had previously played the same character off-Broadway in The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs in 1982, winning an Obie Award. Other big screen highlights include her classic Golden Globe-nominated interpretation of one of the most infamous of all Disney villains - Cruella De Vil - in the 1996 live-action remake of 101 Dalmatians, as well as Mars Attacks!, Air Force One, Disney's Tarzan, The Stepford Wives, and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. She is also no stranger to the small screen, most notably having appeared in her recurring role as Patty Hewes in Damages from 2007 to 2012, winning a couple of Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe along the way.

I am pretty sure that this will be your last opportunity to catch Ms. Close in arguably her most acclaimed role of her entire career, as a return to Sunset Boulevard in another twenty years' time is probably not on the cards. So, with that said, why not make this your "Perfect Year" and treat yourself to a ticket to one of the most talked-about performances of the Broadway season?

Click here for tickets to Sunset Boulevard for performances through to June 25, 2017 at Broadway's Palace Theatre.