“Lempicka” review: The artist’s life is painted with broad and messy brush strokes in new musical

Eden Espinosa stars as famed painter Tamara Lempicka, but the show truly belongs to her lover Rafaela, played by Amber Iman.

Lempicka, the new musical by Matt Gould and Carson Kreitzer currently playing at the Longacre Theatre, starts off promising enough — a screen in the Art Deco style bears the artist’s name/title of the show accompanied by flashing lights and thumping electronic music. It feels like the audience is about to be transported to Xanadu.

And, in a way, we are. Xanadu is, after all, an overblown, overstuffed musical that unintentionally became a camp classic. While it has a talented cast, particularly Amber Iman as Tamara de Lempicka’s muse and lover, the cliché-ridden script, generic songs, and uninspired choreography amount to an occasionally absurd romp through a fascinatingly flawed life.

Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Eden Espinosa in ‘Lempicka’

Tamara de Lempicka was a pioneer, a female artist whose Art Deco images of powerful, coolly detached women made her a celebrity in Paris, and later, Los Angeles. Her name may not be familiar, but her images are unmistakable; her paintings on the covers of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, her aesthetic dripping off Madonna’s “Express Yourself” and “Vogue” videos. The Material Girl ranks among her biggest and most famous collectors, along with Barbra Streisand and Jack Nicholson.

Lempicka was bisexual, notoriously so, and the musical uses this as the crux of her story, as defined by the two great loves of her life: her boring, bland, and basic AF husband Tadeusz Lempicki (Andrew Samonsky) and the dynamic, intriguing Parisian prostitute Rafaela (Iman).

Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman ‘Lempicka’

At one point, Rafaela and Tadeusz sing a duet, “What She Sees,” about how each can see what Tamara sees in them. While it’s clear what she sees in Rafaela — the forbidden, a wellspring of creativity, unbridled passion — her devotion to Tadeusz is a real head-scratcher. For a while, he refuses to get a job and disparages her painting, and this is after she offers her womanly virtue to bust him out of prison. And yet, she loves him desperately-ish.

Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Eden Espinosa and Andrew Samonsky in ‘Lempicka’

Rafaela seems to be an amalgamation of various people in Lempicka’s circle, and the musical takes some generous liberties with other aspects of her life. We’re introduced to Tamara as a young girl on her wedding day, already in a family way, which plays into Tadeusz’s decision to marry her — because he’s the one that needs convincing. Their wedded bliss is interrupted by the Bolshevik Revolution and its corresponding number, “Our Time.”

What, I can only imagine, was meant as a serious, dramatic turning point comes off as V.I. Lenin by way of Lady Gaga, a splashy, too-stylish, oddly sexy declaration of proletarian might that amounts to nothing more than an annoying inconvenience for its pampered protagonist. The number is so tone-deaf and over-the-top that it feels almost like a parody of a musical.

Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman ‘Lempicka’

From there, Lempicka doesn’t get much better, though there are flashes of what could’ve been. Leading lady Eden Espinosa gives it her all, gamely delivering all of Gould’s unnecessary belting and Kreitzer’s leaden dialogue. For a musical essentially about the push and pull of modernity, Gould’s score relies on a lot of traditional Broadway flourishes and melodies. It sounds as if you’re listening to some AI version of what a musical should be. The lyrics are so literal as to invite ridicule — there’s a song about what painting is, “Plan and Design,” and another about what a woman is, named, of course, “Woman Is.”

Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman ‘Lempicka’

It’s a shame, since the show clearly has a big heart and some good ideas — if a bit too many ideas. Lempicka touches on class with its sexy Bolsheviks and the tension between wealthy socialite Tamara and working girl Rafaela; dabbles in queer liberation with its central relationship and the scene-devouring lesbian bar matron Suzy Solidor (Natalie Joy Johnson, playing to the cheap seats in the theater across the street); and sticks a toe into the rise of fascism with the ascension of the Nazis to power — all themes that are incredibly relevant to the moment in which this musical arrives. But it never digs deep enough into any of those themes to give them any weight. They’re just ideas being tossed about a crowded stage in service of one forgettable song after another.

Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman ‘Lempicka’

Raja Feather Kelly fills Riccardo Hernández’s striking stage design, with its nods to Lempicka’s industrial skyscrapers, with tepid, rote choreography. Again, Lady Gaga comes to mind, and not in the best way. Director Rachel Chavkin keeps things moving at a brisk pace, covering some 60 years in the artist’s life, though as with most biographical works of fiction, a tighter scope would’ve worked wonders. The most interesting bit here is the relationship between Tamara and Rafaela, if only because Amber Iman is such an intriguing presence.

Whereas Espinosa has a classic, nasal Broadway soprano, Iman possesses a sultry, smoky alto, reminiscent of Sarah Vaughan and Anita Baker, She has three big numbers, the not-very-good uptempo “Don’t Bet Your Heart,” which invites a car onto the stage. But she truly shines on the slower numbers, “The Most Beautiful Bracelet” and “Stay.” Her performances are soulful and instead of relying on belting, she gets to explore the more subtle shades of these songs, to their (and our) benefit. One almost wishes the musical was about Rafaela, which simply means the portrait of Tamara Lempicka it paints is not compelling enough.

Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman Amber Iman and Eden Espinosa in ‘Lempicka’

Tamara’s main love in life, the play seems to want us to believe, is painting, her work, her freedom. The message is muddled as the show tries to say too much, so that it ends up saying not much of anything at all. A perfect example is the oft-repeated line, “Don’t let them see your brush strokes.” It sounds good, but means nothing out of context, and very little within it. Lempicka looks good, it could’ve been good, it could still be good given some more polish and judicious editing, but in its current state, it’s just a poor imitation of a good musical. C+

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.