War Paint Review

Before I start the review, there is something you need to know. I may use the actors' names instead of the characters, so here is what you need to know. Patti LuPone plays Helena Rubinstein. Christine Ebersole plays Elizabeth Arden. Douglas Sills plays Harry Fleming. John Dossett plays Tommy Lewis. Anyway, on with the review. Sadly for all Broadway theater people, War Paint is closing early because Patti LuPone has to get hip surgery. This information was disclosed at Seth Rudetsky’s Deconstructing Patti concert. Try your best to see it while you still can. It is one of the best musicals on Broadway this season. Its origins, as many of you know, were from the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. If that theater was much smaller than the Nederlander, I wonder if thee were any changes. The show opens with four women onstage singing,and being reprimanded by voices seeing to come from the walls of the theater. Automatically you think, which one is Patti LuPone? Which is Christine Ebersole? None. It is perhaps Michael Greif’s clever decision to give each star a grand entrance. The next place we see is the famous Red Door. A mediocre song follows about all the women getting dolled up in their free time, punctuated by occasional calls saying Christine Ebersole is getting closer and closer. Finally, the music builds in “she’s coming, she’s coming, she’s HERE!”, as the legend arrives. Then the song is again interrupted by John Dossett, her husband, pulling her aside and telling her of Patti LuPone’s return. If this isn;t a convenient place for a scene change, I don’t know what is. Anyway, LuPone enters from a ship with a fur, blowing kisses to her fans, a la On the Twentieth Century, escorted by Douglas Sills.They then reminisce, and go back to her factory, and she sings about her triumphant return “Back on Top”, and showing us, for one of the only times, her beauty technicians. Next comes a song-transition called “My Secret Weapon”, where they both sit back-to-back, unknowingly, in a cafe. They both sing this song to their men about how they value them a lot. In it, Harry comes up with the genius idea of having 2 bottles labeled day cream and night cream, but having them be the same thing! Also Elizabeth has fight with her cohort. Then, Helena sings about her background “My American Moment”, and her and Harry get into a fight. As Harry excuses himself, he is cornered by Arden, who offers him a better job. After Elizabeth’s previous assistant sees them together, he rebels by taking out the showgirls for a wild night on the town. “Step On Out” is a rather useless song, and put in only for plot reasons. When Elizabeth sees the evidence, she quickly divorces John Dossett and hires Doug Sills. Next, LuPone and Ebersole sing about the trials of being a woman business mogul “If I’d Been a Man”, and this is a good point of Frankel and Kories’ wonderful score. The next part is a letdown. When fellow businessman Charles Revson offers to partner, she notices his model more than him. When she interprets him as a male chauvinist, she has a private talk with his model, Dorian Leigh. In “Better Yourself”, she sings about how Dorian can build a reputation for herself. Obviously, she turns down Revson’s offer. Next, in a neat plot clean-up by Michael Arden, Patti LuPone hires John Dossett, Arden’s previous husband and coworker. Dossett discloses a full list of controversial ingredients Elizabeth Arden uses in her products. Helena takes her to court, and she is found guilty. On the way out, Sills tells Ebersole all about LuPone’s ingredients, and she makes a twin lawsuit. Both are found guilty, and the judge orders both t stop production and change labels to every actual ingredient used. In a great song called “Oh, That’s Rich”, all of this is conveyed. It is what I consider to be the best song in the score. Next, in what is not just a showcase for the two’s voices but also an effective first act finale, “Face To Face" soars and brings the show to a pause with a song worthy of the position. So worthy, in fact, that one wonders if it shouldn’t have closed the entire show. Anyway, when the act 2 curtain opens, out step the same 4 ladies that opened the show! This time, they sing the bitter “Inside of the Jar” where they complain about the unfair treatment they received because they didn’t know all the ingredients of their makeup. Next is a moving and funny sequence where both ladies learn of World War 2. In a song, “Necessity is the Mother of Invention”, they advertise on radio their feeble attempts at useful products for fighting women. Rubinstein invents bullet-proof lipsticks that won’t break “even when you drop them on the floor”. Arden makes it so that women can draw seams in their pants with eyebrow pencil, and repurpose other makeup products as well. Next comes a reprise of the first song, with again the same four women. They sing about their conflicting opinions on which is better, Arden or Rubinstein. On a related note, I bet everyone’s wondering which is better, LuPone or Ebersole. I’d be curious to hear what you think. I say overall, Ebersole. If LuPone had better diction, she would be my top choice. But back to the plot. In the next scene, in the same cafe, Helena gets turned down on an apartment application because she is Jewish. Later, it turns out she bought the whole building. Anyway, Arden also suffers a blow. Because she is a working woman, her society friend informs her she has been rejected form the biggest women’s club in town. Rubinstein, presumably having heard, sings the deliciously bitter “Now You Know”, the other high point of the score. In the song, she relentlessly reminds Arden that she is prettier, maybe, but not valued more in society. She says that Arden now knows what it’s like to be rejected for an unreasonable cause. The next song is also amazing. “No Thank You”, as it’s called, is a song where both women turn down an offer by William Paley to advertise their products on television. The men are both outraged, because they think the rival will take him up on the offer. Both say something along the lines of “let her make a fool out of herself!” This is a perfect way to portray Arden and Rubinstein rejecting the modern world. The next song is yet another high point. In it, we see who did take Paley up on the offer. Charles Revson and Dorian Leigh. They do a vulgar commercial, and it is interrupted periodically by Arden or Rubinstein reminding us of this. Also during it, the men remind the women that Revson sales are going way up, and theirs are going way down. The next song is, again, a dull one for the two men. “Dinosaurs” is a corny song with the men reminiscing and essentially repeating their message in “No Thank, You”, but it also portrays their genuine anger at being bossed around. Next come the two vehicles for the women. The first one, “Pink”, is the better one. When Elizabeth Arden gets told her board wants to keep the name and signature color, but transfer the ownership of her company to someone more new and avant-garde, She sings about her color, pink, and how it has shaped her life so far. It ends with a joke, which I won’t spoil for you. The next song is LuPone’s vehicle, “Forever Beautiful”. When two businessmen come over and attempt to make her sell her self-portraits. She sings a rousing song about how they portray her life for her, and how she stays beautiful in each one. The last segment is where the chairman of the club Elizabeth was rejected from, announces that she will make a speech instead of Rubinstein, who refused. Then, it turns, out both will be co-hosting. There follows a scene where not only do Rubinstein and Arden meet (which never happened in real life), they reveal their liking for each other, and lament the decline of real beauty. It is capped off by an awkward valley girl, Brenda, who escorts them form and to the stage. They end together centerstage, holding hands, and wonder, after they’re gone, “who will stand for beauty in the world?” It is a hair-raising and powerful ending, if the staging is a bit anti-climactic. Over all, it is a show crucial for every theater lover to experience, and if you don’t get to see it, listen to the cast album. I’m sure you’ll all love it as much as me.