‘Lempicka’ Broadway review: Painter musical is an epic wreck
nypost.comWhat “Lempicka,” the mystifying new musical about Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka, needs more than anything else is turpentine.Two hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission.
At the Longacre Theatre, 228 W. 48th Street.Gallons and gallons of it.Unfortunately, having garishly blared open Sunday night at the Longacre Theatre, it’s far too late for the creators to start over again on a blank canvas.And so, the ugly splatter that audiences are left to parse is a ridiculous two-and-half-hour Eurovision act with stratospheric delusions of grandeur.
The unwieldy show, with a book and lyrics by Carson Kreitzer and music by Matt Gould, grapples with such lofty topics as fascism, misogyny, homophobia and the nature of what good art is. “Isn’t perfection the enemy?,” a character named the Baroness (Beth Leavel), who I could tell you exactly nothing about, asks the founder of Futurism Filippo Marinetti (George Abud), a loon who prizes sleek efficiency over romantic beauty.Could very well be, Baroness.
But in musical theater, coherency is definitely your friend. And “Lempicka” is incoherent.Start with the comically broad setting.
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