Nicole Scherzinger was exhausted. It was a week since Jamie Lloyd’s new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” had begun performances, and Scherzinger was playing the lead role of Norma Desmond — the forgotten star of the silent screen whose attempt at a comeback doesn’t end well.

In Lloyd’s stripped-down, psychologically focused production at the Savoy Theater, Norma’s unraveling psyche is the heart of a story that is less about the loss of stardom than the emotional fallout of being passed over while in possession of all your gifts. At the end of the show the previous night, Scherzinger stood alone onstage, covered in blood and dazed, appearing to hardly register the audience’s wild applause.