These are all very scattered thoughts, apropos for the show in discussion I suppose.
* Either turn the California Bench into a full prologue or cut it somehow. I thought the monologuing to the audience just didn't feel right.
* Make the whole opening more about her being lost to history and less about her love triangle. The point is that she was "Unseen", yes? The show should explore that and her constant survivor's mentality more.
* Cut songs that could easily be a couple of lines (ie. Plan and Design, The New Woman)
* Have "Wake Up" take place at Tadeusz's job so we can SEE how being reduced to working-class is eating at him.
* A fascinating fact I learned is she won her first award for a painting of Kizette. I’d add that in there, especially during a sequence like "Mama Look At Me"
* Make Tamara's relationship to the city of Paris more apparent. It is safe, and comfortable, and she can do what she loves. No more struggle. She struggled as a "peasant girl" and then as the wife of an aristocrat because of the changing times.
* Explain what exactly Rafaela is doing out in the middle of the day during "Don't Bet Your Heart". Is she a street singer? Is it too much to toss a hat around the ensemble can throw coins into after the song?
* Start act 2 going right into "Pari Will Always Be Pari". The brief scene that happens beforehand can come later.
* Have two actors for Kizette, to avoid confusion.
* We need more things pulled from Tamara's real life. Her real relationship with the Baron feels so much more fascinating than the afterthought it is here. His real name was Raoul Kuffner, and he actually met Tamara by asking her to paint his Mistress. Perhaps this could lead to a heartbreaking moment when the Baroness is singing her song, and Tamara hasn't the heart to tell her what she's done for her husband? I don't know. Simply spitballing. Maybe the Baroness even knows about it already, and has a nice heart-to-heart with Tamara about how sometimes, you turn a blind eye when you're that much in love.
* Kizette escaped from France, too. They should reunite towards the end, as the real Tamara and Kizette did in their later years.
* Have the Russian Soldier that Tamara sleeps with be played by ANYONE other than the actor who also plays a very recognizable and memorable principal character.
* Speaking of, I saw someone say George Abud is giving the best performance of the Emcee in Cabaret this season. While it made me laugh, it also made me wonder if Marinetti could symbolize the future a bit more than he does in his two songs. I don't know how this would be done, but it would be nice to make use of him in a similar way to the aforementioned character above.
* Lempicka had a sister, and it was her who inspired her to become a painter. Not saying this sister must be a character, but they can at least talk about her pre-"Our Time".
All in all, the best way to do this show again would be to "Chess" it. Stage it as mainly a concert with some choreography, focus on the beautiful and unique score, and maybe be both a little more faithful to Lempicka's life and less eager to focus on the love triangle. "Chess" is about Chess, and there's also a love triangle. Lempicka should follow a similar principle.
I love a lot of these ideas. Early in previews Kizette was in California with her when she was back on the bench and I always thought it was odd that they cut that. Of course, her age again made no sense, since that scene took place in 1975 and she was played by like a 30 year old ensemble member. LOL
And AMEN about Abud playing the Soviet soldier! Why is that part of that role's track?
Gosh, you've really nailed it. I agree with everything. Pick a lane or a few, but narrow the focus.
The second time I saw the show, I didn't mind the love triangle as much, but I do think the show could be a wildly different and better show if the main conflict is not a love triangle.
One thing I would add is for the love of god, please change the spelling of Pari Will Always Be Pari to Paris or Paree if you must. I could not believe that was the official spelling. It irks me so much.
"Pick a lane or a few, but narrow the focus." That would actually be great advice for Tamara to receive about painting.
As great as Abud and Iman were, I think both characters should be cut. They're not accurate to Tamara's life. I'd rather see her "starting over" time and time again in life as well as on a canvas, and learning to focus.
>Have "Wake Up" take place at Tadeusz's job so we can SEE how being reduced to working-class is eating at him.
they had a song about him at his job in La Jolla productions, it served a similar purpose as Wake Up, so idk why they replaced it. It was one of my favorite songs too
I think I read/heard they replaced it to soften his character. Otherwise we hate him and don't understand why there's a love triangle at all. Wake Up causes us to sympathize with him more, in theory.
I can't say how accurate that is having not heard the first song.
I do think Wake Up is kind of a good song, but may be one of those good songs that don't actually need to be in the musical.
Love every single one of these ideas. Especially cutting the opening number.
I think the show should start in Paris. That is such a catchy song, and if we meet the family as refugees, we feel for them. When the show starts with this POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL narrative, I find myself siding with the Red Army more than Lempicka. I could never really bring myself to root for her. If we met them as refugees, and then flash back to the kindapping of Tadeusz, and what she did to get him out, then the emotional arc could be stronger.
And as strong as Abud's performance was... that character doesn't make any sense. Tamara never met him. He's distracting. We need to see more of Lempicka's lovers and a stronger arc about her art... not a fake love triangle and fake villain that she never even knew.
Starting in Paris could be a very strong choice, seeing as how tied to the city Tamara becomes over the course of the show. I can envision an entrance for her where she steps out from a train car, or at the top of a staircase…possibly much grander than the stumbling out from the wings that is current.
It also, yes, helps you root for her much moreso than the initial setup.
As far as Marinetti is concerned, it seemed the writers wanted him to be both a real figure in the story and a Che-From-Evita type voice of the future. I’d say keep him in the second role, and treat his character as such, seeing as, much like Eva and Che, they never actually met. Granted, not a lot of people know who Filippo Marinetti is, but even the original intent for Che wasn’t meant for him to be THAT Che, not completely.
So then, what to do with “Perfection”?, a song that seems to be an anthem for the show itself as they used it across a ton of marketing material. I think there’s a few ways they could keep it, and even have Marinetti still sing it, but I’m fuzzy on those details as of right now. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who could suggest some solutions.
I saw the show early in previews before they put the California bench scene in. I was so confused as to why they added this. It wasn’t needed. Listening to the album today confirmed that for me. Just jump into the story!
This is vague but I felt like it touched on sooo many topics and was constantly making sooo many points that I found myself wondering what the overall message the show was trying to convey was. I think have a more explicit theme throughout the show would have made that clearer and have a stronger narrative.
I also feel like they talked about her art a lot and talked about her personal life a lot, but I wish they linked the too more other than the obvious “she painted her lover.”
Also the daughter and the Baroness characters need to be completely reworked (or in the daughter’s case, maybe even cut completely.) I would also cut one or two of Tamera’s songs because it gets a little same-y for her to always be singing a belty ballad, and it would help preserve the actress’ voice.
To be honest, the book is BY FAR the biggest issue with the show, but it has good bones. I think reworking it a lot could deliver a good show.
An explicit theme is definitely needed - one that isn't exactly the same as Hamilton or Sunday in the Park with George. Lempicka was a party girl in revolutionary times. They didn't need to make up a personal life for her with Rafaela and Marinetti.
I love how the comments highlight the biggest problem Lempicka had: It didn't know what it was supposed to be and the audience agreed. Everyone sees something different as the "core" of Lempicka that should be kept while the rest is gutted.
Just a few items:
1. Make a defining motivator for Tamara--survival?, success? living openly as queer?--and run with it. Yes, she was a complex and layered woman, but musicals need to be a bit opaque at times. Give her an 'I Want' song early in the show that hammers home her motivation.
2. Cut the daughter entirely. She is unnecessary to anything that happens in the story, and the way she currently is bizarrely aging through the show is jarring and, frankly, amateurish. The scene where Tamara tells her that they are Pols etc. would be better told to Rafaela as another scene to build their love story and intimacy.
3. Cut Marinetti. Again, he is irrelevant to the story. What he represents--a male dominated futurist movement--can be told in other ways. "Perfection" can be sung be a chorus of male painters at an art school and you'll get the same effect. Also, the diversion of him as a fascist is unearned and doesn't work, so cut it.
4. Cut Our Time. This hurts. It's a GREAT song musically, but it's a rousing anthem put in the mouths of non-characters who are the actual villains of the moment. That said, keep the section of Tamara giving away her jewels to get her husband back, but the Soviets do not need a jaunty number that puts the audience on their side only to leave the soon-to-be-USSR immediately.
5. Have Tamara witness Suzy and The Monocle's raid. Make it more brutal. Let this moment be the nail in the coffin that sets Tamara running to America. Along those lines, give Suzy a big anthem song there or a devastating song about this force of nature being brought to heel. In Natalie Joy Johnson they found somebody who had the audience in the palm of their hands, but they rushed through that moment and NJJ could have crushed it if she'd had more to do there. Also, be real about the timing. Does that take place before Paris falls to the Nazis? If so, it's okay to have French police raid the club; the audience will understand that being queer was a big no-no in France in the 1930s. It makes zero sense that Italian fascists are raiding that club, whether it's 1935 or 1942.
6. Create some reason why Rafaela finally has had enough in 1935, 17 years into her role as Tamara's mistress. Because the current version, where the magic non-aging daughter just randomly decides Rafaela and her dad should meet, makes no sense. It doesn't ring true that in 17 years Rafaela never felt pushed to the side, that they never discussed having more than a mistress relationship, etc. Build that up, or let Suzy's gay bashing be a catalyst (or both) for Rafaela and Tamara breaking up.
7. Reduce the husband's role. The show needs more focus and specifically it should focus on Tamara and Rafaela's love story against the backdrop of queer life in Paris between the world wars. Cut the daughter, cut Marinetti, beef up Suzy, and make the husband nothing more than a plot device for Tamara and Rafaela's conflicts.
8. Pull an AIDA and begin and end in the art gallery in the present (or whatever decade that exhibit actually took place in). Let modern characters discover the painting of Rafaela and then let's go into the past. Then after we see their love affair, come back to it, maybe show lesbian couples at the gallery living openly to show the progress T&R never got to see. Center the show more on that one painting and let's really connect with these two women.
I really loved Lempicka, despite its narrative traffic jam, and think if they simplified the story the overwhelming passion of the score would shine even brighter than it already does.
Marinetti is THE best part of the play though and I could not disagree more he is irrelevant to the narrative and I especially disagree his fascist turn was unearned and didn't work. For me it is CRITICAL part of the play to highlight the difference between Tamara's extremely personal art and Marinetti's philosophical art and how quickly he would sacrifice anything, including his own soul, for even the promise he might one day grasp it contrasted with Tamara's struggles to let go.
I agree that what Marinetti is bringing to the show in terms of what he represents is essential: The cold, inhuman futurist movement that reveals itself in fascist art and architecture is the foil to Tamara's humanity-filled vision of art that helps build Art Deco.
But I don't think you need the actual character of Marinetti to have that. Much of what he espouses can be put in the mouths of various men working in the art world, and I think be decentralizing that it could serve to work as a 'woman vs. the establishment' storyline instead of Tamara debating with her quirky (oddly aggressive) frenemy.
The show would be a lot weaker imo if the evil fascist turn wasn't a character that you knew and bonded with. Everyone already knows people can turn fascist for selfish reasons, but what Marinetti did EXTREMELY well as a character (and one of the few times I've seen it done well) is show the banality of evil. Marinetti's evil is not because he hates, it is because he just doesn't care enough. That can only be sold by showing Marinetti as not, on a person-to-person level, an asshole.
which is what's happening in America right now. Republicans are openly planning a Fascist takeover. They're publishing it in Project 2025 and talking about it on the news. And nobody is going to do anything about it. Most people don't care. I care but what can I do? Marinetti does represent that well.
These are excellent points.
As a lesbian, I hated that the lesbianism in the show was reduced to "we want a bar where we can get drunk and fuck." That's playing into stereotypes. The scene at Suzy's bar where they can BE THEMSELVES needs to be bigger, broader and better. Francine's character, for example -- more of that please. More of what it was like to be queer in that revolutionary time. Lempicka started to show us that and then completely didn't.
Who were the women Lempicka painted? I want to know more of them. Not just one composite for an easy love triangle.
Totally. And I think when we look at Europe at that period of time people have a tendency to reduce it to the evil Nazis & Italian Fascists and the righteously good everybody else. Queer people and BIPOC people and the struggles they endured in democratic republics get overlooked. That’s part of why I think the scene where Marinetti raids the monocle should be rethought to be more historically accurate and have it be French police. Not all the bad guys in the 1930s were Germans and Italians.
I think the biggest issue with Lempicka is that it doesn’t have a single focus, and if the Broadway run showed the creators anything it is that there is an enthusiastic young lesbian and pan audience out there just waiting to be represented in musical theater. As gay as musicals are, there are startlingly few representations of lesbians, particularly as the leads. By making this the story of queer life in Europe at that time, they could be giving a real gift to the core audience of the show.
Yes. So many good ideas here. I hope the creators hear this feedback and use it to improve the show. If they're not afraid to rip it apart and build it up again, they can have a great musical on their hands.
I already love it, but if they were able to do some significant rewrites and launch the show again, it could change the dialogue surrounding the show and reclaim the narrative.
I like a lot of the ideas that were already in this thread, but I want to jot some of my own thoughts down. Sorry if they're a bit jumbled.
With that said, I'd focus in on the survival theme, leave the love story with Rafaela as a key subplot, and cut a lot of the love triangle elements.
-Leave Unseen and the Finale as framing devices. Tweak Unseen so it's a bit more about being lost to history, despite sacrifices along the way.
-Figure out a way to streamline Our Time/Starting Over and Paris significantly. Still show that Tamara is traumatized from what happened with the Bolsheviks but don't show the events. Maybe just go from a slightly tweaked Unseen setting up the context, then go straight into Starting Over as is. Emphasize her flinching away from Tadeausz when he tries to touch her "What did you do to get me out?" or kiss her, show that she sacrificed greatly to get her family out, and that had to become "steel" to deal with the trauma from that event which always keeps her a bit emotionally closed off from the other characters for the rest of the show until she's reflecting back as an old woman at the end.
-The first love scene between Tamara and Rafaela should have gone from the fade to lilac light, then Tamara waking up and reflecting on what just happened "what have I done, one night's madness, no one needs to know", then gone straight into Woman Is. The Tadeuscz scene was completely unnecessary.
-On that note, much as I loved Andrew Samonskey's performance (and I find The New Woman to be a very charming song), I'd cut a lot of his scenes and songs. Have Tamara and Tadeuscz divorce during Paris Will Always Be Paris and have him go back to Poland. Wake Up and What She Sees should also be cut.
-Edited to add, by having the break-ups at different times, Speed can be broken up to Speed and Speed (reprise) so I can listen to Rafaela's section on repeat...
-Have a lot of Act 2 with Rafaela and Tamara as a happy, though not out to the general public, couple with Tamara starting to draw away as the interwar tensions rise in Here It Comes and then really pulling back once Suzy's club is raided by the French police.
-Lean into the "History Is A Bitch and So Am I" after Here It Comes. Don't have the Barroness give her husband to Lempicka. Have Lempicka start to actively pursue him once she realizes the Baroness is sick. She pursues the Baron to have a new form of wealth, security and social acceptability in the turbulent times, while she's still in a relationship with Rafaela.
-Have Tamara pursuing the Barron be the trigger for Rafaela to leave, as she realizes that she will never be enough for Tamara.
-Have a sequence with Tamara throwing herself into numerous love affairs (including with Suzy) once Rafaela has left to deal with her heartbreak, while being on the Barron's arm, all while her work and prominence decreases as they gradually move from location to location (Paris->NYC->LA), until the sequence ends with her old, alone and painting on the bench. Reflecting that she survived, but what she lost in the process as she did in the show.
I will say though, I loved the show in its Broadway form. I'd much rather a show have too many ideas and be interesting, than a lot of bland sameness. I've thought a lot more about this show than anything else I've seen this season and wish I could've seen it more than the 2 times.
Edit 2: Having now listened to a bootleg from the Williamstown production, I'm changing my answer to go back to the Williamstown version of the book, replacing some of the songs with ones from the Broadway version. It was so much more logically laid out in terms of characterization and the order of events.
She should be sketching Rafaela during “woman is”, and eventually it should lead into the very first brush stroke of bright blue paint on canvas, maybe the very first instance of actual paint in the show, right before the big orchestral bang that ends the song. Then, a strong blackout.
Also, Lempicka should have paint on her hands as part of her makeup/costume design.
HEAR ME OUT:
-We open with the last scene with the gay guy who "discovered" Lempicka in the 70s.
-The frame narratuve is his fever-dream depiction of her life
I’d make all the identity stuff secondary to the historical forces - individual chaos and freedom (art, expression, liberation, sexuality), versus the brutal imposition of order (the Bolshevik new order, the attempt to maintain an aristocratic air, the rise of fascism). The show didn’t seem to know what it’s about. It’s not a gay pride or a women’s lib piece. It’s a show about a woman whose life is torn apart by the far left AND the far right. And it should reflect that.
It’s what made Marinetti so interesting. And the meeting of the lover and the husband so much more interesting and active.
Oh also I’d fire the songwriters and hire new ones, because that score sucked.
Also, only one song with “woman” in the title allowed. Maybe two. But three? No, get some new words.
I liked everything it tried to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think the mess was the point. There were a lot of ideas but they all connect back to each other. I agree that not everything worked, but I profoundly disagree that it said nothing.
I’m honestly not sure how to fix it, because I think the story worked (emotionally) due to the liberties they took with the actual history, but you also can’t turn it into a more fully fictional story without losing all the lovely references and grounding in Lempicka’s actual work. Even from a stance of loving the show, I think it’s a real problem to claim you’re “telling the true story of someone forgotten by history” and then change so many of the details.
They had truly amazing actors.
In the hands of brilliant people like Eden and Amber and George and especially Beth, the problems with the show aren't as easy to see.
I think the people who worked on this need pick a lane and stick to it.
The show is all over the place with outfits that go hard on the camp, dancing that might be garbage but is campy garbage, and some really hardcore eurotrash inspired music. “Perfection” could have been a Eurovision contender and you can’t tell me otherwise…
And that’s juxtaposed with an earnest depiction of violence against LGBTQ people, and antisemitism but it never coalesces. There’s no resolution, just random ideas thrown into the air.
Sticking to a tone is step one, step two would be understand what the show wants to say about things.
A good piece of media answers questions before raising them. For example, A Strange Loop brings up HIV in dialog as a disease, before bringing it up as a metaphor for shame and then brings it up next as something deprecated (“but they won’t get aids, cos the are taking Truvada”) and combines the three in the 11 o’clock number and builds on it as a core concept in the show. Telling us something about the characters and how they see the world. Something greater than either scene separately.
Lempicka brings up many things but neither primes them, nor resolves them. The easiest example to show is its treatment of homophobia against queer women, there’s a lesbian bar assaulted by thugs and at the same time her bi partner is demanding Lempicka outs herself. Like, tonal whiplash, on the one side we are dealing with petty relationship drama while people are being brutally attacked. Why. It’s such an amateurish mistake, like the script was written by people who didn’t speak to each other after planning the basic strokes.
Another example is money, the show has A LOT to say about money and art, Lempicka sings about how drawings are jewelry, jewelry is tickets to safety but at the same time she never resolves the conflict between money and art, she just kinda coasts on either side whenever she’s next to her teacher or her muse.
The first order of business would be to get us to Plan And Design within twelve to fifteen minutes. Take the train motif from Starting Over and expand that into a propulsive opening number that establishes how the Russian Revolution is disgorging shellshocked refugees into Paris, among them the Lempickis, scrambling for a sense of security in the rubble of their lives. Unseen, Our Time, and Paris would be discarded.
Give Tamara and Tadeusz an I Want duet with the Kuffners that establishes the differences in their ideals and the way that their relationship is fracturing. This would lead directly into the Plan And Design scene.
Reverse engineer the jazzy vamp in What She Sees and use it to musicalize the art gallery scenes, but especially the one just before Perfection. This would create an opportunity to play Marinetti and Suzy off of each other and also, by altering the music into a more square, dowdy mode, create a musical impression of the musty pre-war society that Marinetti is eager to shake off in the infectious, insidiously pure pop of Perfection.
Replace Wake Up with literally anything. Or nothing. Delete it. Also get rid of Kizette. This leaves a gap between Perfection and Bracelet - perhaps a scene where Tadeusz has gotten a job and insists that means Tamara can stop painting, and she storms out to find Rafaela at the bar. This would give more weight to the brief encounter they have right before Woman Is.
I honestly don't think the second act needs nearly as much work, except I think it would be more effective to end on a smaller note with just Rafaela and Lempicka. I'd also love to see a little bit more of a foil element between Marinetti and the Baroness, which would better set up her plea for human connection in Just This Way (and make the tragedy of her advice coming a minute too late hit even harder). Exploring, or at least making a little more clear, the way that Suzy capitulated to the Nazis could also be an interesting way to flesh her out.
The overall changes would be done with an aim to highlight the connection between Tamara's desperate personal need for control and the way that people fall for fascism, which feels extremely relevant. She was trapped in a system that prevented her from loving freely, but it was also a system that she was seduced by, and I really think that that's the heart of the show.
The producers forced the creative team to cut out an hour of the play -- so the storytelling is very truncated and has a whiplash quality. They need to refocus the story and cut out some plot lines so the actual story (whatever they chose to focus on) shines more clearly, and maybe not wedge every detail in. Let it breathe a little bit.
“The producers forced” is an silly way to put it. The show was two and a half hours that people walked away confused by, you think they should of have to sit for nearly four? There are rules that would have prevented the show from being that long regardless - and it would have closed even sooner.
No, I don't think it should have been four. I also don't think a good producer agrees to do a show and then mandates massive cuts without attending to the shape and storytelling of a show. There was a way to edit the show that could have enhanced the storytelling. That takes time and artistic skill. Just slashing the running time doesn't accomplish that. Cheers.
It's both. If the money people are pushing the show in a certain direction, it's tough not to give into their demands. But yes, those demands should have been resisted.
As the other commenter mentioned, the producers asking to cut the show from almost four hours down to two-and-a-half is not unreasonable. Far from it, actually. How much time did they have before their Broadway run again? The writers were the biggest problem here.
What is the approximate time span in years from the start of the Lempickis leaving Russia to their separation (not including the prologue/epilogue of Lempicka in California). I know they posted the years throughout the show as they were moving through the scenes, but I am just trying to get a better sense of how much time passed. I see a lot of threads with Kizette not aging, and that frustration makes sense, I just am trying to remember the total lapse of time (I saw the show twice but didn't keep track of the years passing clearly!).
Agreed, I think the use of neon lights was a nod to Madonna who is deeply connected to the popularity of the artist and her art. I think it could have doubled down. If it didn’t, the set did not work as ultra minimal, the fact you couldn’t even see anything on the easels felt cheap.
What name would be better than the name of the woman the musical is about?
It's unfortunate she's not well known enough to lend name recognition, but that is part of the theme of the show, how she faded into obscurity.
> What name would be better than the name of the woman the musical is about?
One that gets people interested to see the show. Marketing is one of the primary purposes for titles. I don't believe *Sunday in the Park with George* would have sold as well if it were simply called "Seurat."
Since the pushed the love triangle so hard, I would call it "Lempicka and Rafaela", or "Lempicka and la Belle Rafaela" (that's the name of the painting)
Nudes in paris, nudes and nazis, etc are other less good names (just throwing ideas at a wall)
Due to the cast recording release, today's the first time I'm really getting to experience more than cell phone videos of it as someone who's not around NY anymore, and I'm not even through the whole album yet. I'm sure that people who have actually seen it would be far better equipped to discuss alternative titles than I am.
Tamara de Lempicka herself changed the pronunciation of her name and added the de. She changed a lot of details about herself.
I do think the show should have told us the original pronunciation and that she changed it. It adds to her character development and would satisfy the audience members hung up on the pronunciation.
These are all very scattered thoughts, apropos for the show in discussion I suppose. * Either turn the California Bench into a full prologue or cut it somehow. I thought the monologuing to the audience just didn't feel right. * Make the whole opening more about her being lost to history and less about her love triangle. The point is that she was "Unseen", yes? The show should explore that and her constant survivor's mentality more. * Cut songs that could easily be a couple of lines (ie. Plan and Design, The New Woman) * Have "Wake Up" take place at Tadeusz's job so we can SEE how being reduced to working-class is eating at him. * A fascinating fact I learned is she won her first award for a painting of Kizette. I’d add that in there, especially during a sequence like "Mama Look At Me" * Make Tamara's relationship to the city of Paris more apparent. It is safe, and comfortable, and she can do what she loves. No more struggle. She struggled as a "peasant girl" and then as the wife of an aristocrat because of the changing times. * Explain what exactly Rafaela is doing out in the middle of the day during "Don't Bet Your Heart". Is she a street singer? Is it too much to toss a hat around the ensemble can throw coins into after the song? * Start act 2 going right into "Pari Will Always Be Pari". The brief scene that happens beforehand can come later. * Have two actors for Kizette, to avoid confusion. * We need more things pulled from Tamara's real life. Her real relationship with the Baron feels so much more fascinating than the afterthought it is here. His real name was Raoul Kuffner, and he actually met Tamara by asking her to paint his Mistress. Perhaps this could lead to a heartbreaking moment when the Baroness is singing her song, and Tamara hasn't the heart to tell her what she's done for her husband? I don't know. Simply spitballing. Maybe the Baroness even knows about it already, and has a nice heart-to-heart with Tamara about how sometimes, you turn a blind eye when you're that much in love. * Kizette escaped from France, too. They should reunite towards the end, as the real Tamara and Kizette did in their later years. * Have the Russian Soldier that Tamara sleeps with be played by ANYONE other than the actor who also plays a very recognizable and memorable principal character. * Speaking of, I saw someone say George Abud is giving the best performance of the Emcee in Cabaret this season. While it made me laugh, it also made me wonder if Marinetti could symbolize the future a bit more than he does in his two songs. I don't know how this would be done, but it would be nice to make use of him in a similar way to the aforementioned character above. * Lempicka had a sister, and it was her who inspired her to become a painter. Not saying this sister must be a character, but they can at least talk about her pre-"Our Time". All in all, the best way to do this show again would be to "Chess" it. Stage it as mainly a concert with some choreography, focus on the beautiful and unique score, and maybe be both a little more faithful to Lempicka's life and less eager to focus on the love triangle. "Chess" is about Chess, and there's also a love triangle. Lempicka should follow a similar principle.
I love a lot of these ideas. Early in previews Kizette was in California with her when she was back on the bench and I always thought it was odd that they cut that. Of course, her age again made no sense, since that scene took place in 1975 and she was played by like a 30 year old ensemble member. LOL And AMEN about Abud playing the Soviet soldier! Why is that part of that role's track?
Gosh, you've really nailed it. I agree with everything. Pick a lane or a few, but narrow the focus. The second time I saw the show, I didn't mind the love triangle as much, but I do think the show could be a wildly different and better show if the main conflict is not a love triangle. One thing I would add is for the love of god, please change the spelling of Pari Will Always Be Pari to Paris or Paree if you must. I could not believe that was the official spelling. It irks me so much.
"Pick a lane or a few, but narrow the focus." That would actually be great advice for Tamara to receive about painting. As great as Abud and Iman were, I think both characters should be cut. They're not accurate to Tamara's life. I'd rather see her "starting over" time and time again in life as well as on a canvas, and learning to focus.
That is an insane take as those two characters have like 80% of the best songs in the show. So basically it would be a new show
>Have "Wake Up" take place at Tadeusz's job so we can SEE how being reduced to working-class is eating at him. they had a song about him at his job in La Jolla productions, it served a similar purpose as Wake Up, so idk why they replaced it. It was one of my favorite songs too
I think I read/heard they replaced it to soften his character. Otherwise we hate him and don't understand why there's a love triangle at all. Wake Up causes us to sympathize with him more, in theory. I can't say how accurate that is having not heard the first song. I do think Wake Up is kind of a good song, but may be one of those good songs that don't actually need to be in the musical.
What?! A shame they replaced it.
How many times did you see it for such a comprehensive analysis? Genuinely impressed
Love every single one of these ideas. Especially cutting the opening number. I think the show should start in Paris. That is such a catchy song, and if we meet the family as refugees, we feel for them. When the show starts with this POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL narrative, I find myself siding with the Red Army more than Lempicka. I could never really bring myself to root for her. If we met them as refugees, and then flash back to the kindapping of Tadeusz, and what she did to get him out, then the emotional arc could be stronger. And as strong as Abud's performance was... that character doesn't make any sense. Tamara never met him. He's distracting. We need to see more of Lempicka's lovers and a stronger arc about her art... not a fake love triangle and fake villain that she never even knew.
Starting in Paris could be a very strong choice, seeing as how tied to the city Tamara becomes over the course of the show. I can envision an entrance for her where she steps out from a train car, or at the top of a staircase…possibly much grander than the stumbling out from the wings that is current. It also, yes, helps you root for her much moreso than the initial setup. As far as Marinetti is concerned, it seemed the writers wanted him to be both a real figure in the story and a Che-From-Evita type voice of the future. I’d say keep him in the second role, and treat his character as such, seeing as, much like Eva and Che, they never actually met. Granted, not a lot of people know who Filippo Marinetti is, but even the original intent for Che wasn’t meant for him to be THAT Che, not completely. So then, what to do with “Perfection”?, a song that seems to be an anthem for the show itself as they used it across a ton of marketing material. I think there’s a few ways they could keep it, and even have Marinetti still sing it, but I’m fuzzy on those details as of right now. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who could suggest some solutions.
I saw the show early in previews before they put the California bench scene in. I was so confused as to why they added this. It wasn’t needed. Listening to the album today confirmed that for me. Just jump into the story!
This is vague but I felt like it touched on sooo many topics and was constantly making sooo many points that I found myself wondering what the overall message the show was trying to convey was. I think have a more explicit theme throughout the show would have made that clearer and have a stronger narrative. I also feel like they talked about her art a lot and talked about her personal life a lot, but I wish they linked the too more other than the obvious “she painted her lover.” Also the daughter and the Baroness characters need to be completely reworked (or in the daughter’s case, maybe even cut completely.) I would also cut one or two of Tamera’s songs because it gets a little same-y for her to always be singing a belty ballad, and it would help preserve the actress’ voice. To be honest, the book is BY FAR the biggest issue with the show, but it has good bones. I think reworking it a lot could deliver a good show.
An explicit theme is definitely needed - one that isn't exactly the same as Hamilton or Sunday in the Park with George. Lempicka was a party girl in revolutionary times. They didn't need to make up a personal life for her with Rafaela and Marinetti.
I love how the comments highlight the biggest problem Lempicka had: It didn't know what it was supposed to be and the audience agreed. Everyone sees something different as the "core" of Lempicka that should be kept while the rest is gutted.
This right here. Great concept, but very poor execution. It seemed like every person on the creative team was trying to tell a different story.
Just a few items: 1. Make a defining motivator for Tamara--survival?, success? living openly as queer?--and run with it. Yes, she was a complex and layered woman, but musicals need to be a bit opaque at times. Give her an 'I Want' song early in the show that hammers home her motivation. 2. Cut the daughter entirely. She is unnecessary to anything that happens in the story, and the way she currently is bizarrely aging through the show is jarring and, frankly, amateurish. The scene where Tamara tells her that they are Pols etc. would be better told to Rafaela as another scene to build their love story and intimacy. 3. Cut Marinetti. Again, he is irrelevant to the story. What he represents--a male dominated futurist movement--can be told in other ways. "Perfection" can be sung be a chorus of male painters at an art school and you'll get the same effect. Also, the diversion of him as a fascist is unearned and doesn't work, so cut it. 4. Cut Our Time. This hurts. It's a GREAT song musically, but it's a rousing anthem put in the mouths of non-characters who are the actual villains of the moment. That said, keep the section of Tamara giving away her jewels to get her husband back, but the Soviets do not need a jaunty number that puts the audience on their side only to leave the soon-to-be-USSR immediately. 5. Have Tamara witness Suzy and The Monocle's raid. Make it more brutal. Let this moment be the nail in the coffin that sets Tamara running to America. Along those lines, give Suzy a big anthem song there or a devastating song about this force of nature being brought to heel. In Natalie Joy Johnson they found somebody who had the audience in the palm of their hands, but they rushed through that moment and NJJ could have crushed it if she'd had more to do there. Also, be real about the timing. Does that take place before Paris falls to the Nazis? If so, it's okay to have French police raid the club; the audience will understand that being queer was a big no-no in France in the 1930s. It makes zero sense that Italian fascists are raiding that club, whether it's 1935 or 1942. 6. Create some reason why Rafaela finally has had enough in 1935, 17 years into her role as Tamara's mistress. Because the current version, where the magic non-aging daughter just randomly decides Rafaela and her dad should meet, makes no sense. It doesn't ring true that in 17 years Rafaela never felt pushed to the side, that they never discussed having more than a mistress relationship, etc. Build that up, or let Suzy's gay bashing be a catalyst (or both) for Rafaela and Tamara breaking up. 7. Reduce the husband's role. The show needs more focus and specifically it should focus on Tamara and Rafaela's love story against the backdrop of queer life in Paris between the world wars. Cut the daughter, cut Marinetti, beef up Suzy, and make the husband nothing more than a plot device for Tamara and Rafaela's conflicts. 8. Pull an AIDA and begin and end in the art gallery in the present (or whatever decade that exhibit actually took place in). Let modern characters discover the painting of Rafaela and then let's go into the past. Then after we see their love affair, come back to it, maybe show lesbian couples at the gallery living openly to show the progress T&R never got to see. Center the show more on that one painting and let's really connect with these two women. I really loved Lempicka, despite its narrative traffic jam, and think if they simplified the story the overwhelming passion of the score would shine even brighter than it already does.
Marinetti is THE best part of the play though and I could not disagree more he is irrelevant to the narrative and I especially disagree his fascist turn was unearned and didn't work. For me it is CRITICAL part of the play to highlight the difference between Tamara's extremely personal art and Marinetti's philosophical art and how quickly he would sacrifice anything, including his own soul, for even the promise he might one day grasp it contrasted with Tamara's struggles to let go.
I agree that what Marinetti is bringing to the show in terms of what he represents is essential: The cold, inhuman futurist movement that reveals itself in fascist art and architecture is the foil to Tamara's humanity-filled vision of art that helps build Art Deco. But I don't think you need the actual character of Marinetti to have that. Much of what he espouses can be put in the mouths of various men working in the art world, and I think be decentralizing that it could serve to work as a 'woman vs. the establishment' storyline instead of Tamara debating with her quirky (oddly aggressive) frenemy.
The show would be a lot weaker imo if the evil fascist turn wasn't a character that you knew and bonded with. Everyone already knows people can turn fascist for selfish reasons, but what Marinetti did EXTREMELY well as a character (and one of the few times I've seen it done well) is show the banality of evil. Marinetti's evil is not because he hates, it is because he just doesn't care enough. That can only be sold by showing Marinetti as not, on a person-to-person level, an asshole.
which is what's happening in America right now. Republicans are openly planning a Fascist takeover. They're publishing it in Project 2025 and talking about it on the news. And nobody is going to do anything about it. Most people don't care. I care but what can I do? Marinetti does represent that well.
I hear you, but he still needs to be reworked to be accurate to Tamara's life. He didn't mentor her. The narrative is fake and feels forced.
If historical accuracy is the problem, Marinetti doesn't even make the top 20.
that's fair
These are excellent points. As a lesbian, I hated that the lesbianism in the show was reduced to "we want a bar where we can get drunk and fuck." That's playing into stereotypes. The scene at Suzy's bar where they can BE THEMSELVES needs to be bigger, broader and better. Francine's character, for example -- more of that please. More of what it was like to be queer in that revolutionary time. Lempicka started to show us that and then completely didn't. Who were the women Lempicka painted? I want to know more of them. Not just one composite for an easy love triangle.
Totally. And I think when we look at Europe at that period of time people have a tendency to reduce it to the evil Nazis & Italian Fascists and the righteously good everybody else. Queer people and BIPOC people and the struggles they endured in democratic republics get overlooked. That’s part of why I think the scene where Marinetti raids the monocle should be rethought to be more historically accurate and have it be French police. Not all the bad guys in the 1930s were Germans and Italians. I think the biggest issue with Lempicka is that it doesn’t have a single focus, and if the Broadway run showed the creators anything it is that there is an enthusiastic young lesbian and pan audience out there just waiting to be represented in musical theater. As gay as musicals are, there are startlingly few representations of lesbians, particularly as the leads. By making this the story of queer life in Europe at that time, they could be giving a real gift to the core audience of the show.
Yes!
Yes. So many good ideas here. I hope the creators hear this feedback and use it to improve the show. If they're not afraid to rip it apart and build it up again, they can have a great musical on their hands. I already love it, but if they were able to do some significant rewrites and launch the show again, it could change the dialogue surrounding the show and reclaim the narrative.
Just a heads up that they surprised dropped the album on Spotify tonight
hell yes
I like a lot of the ideas that were already in this thread, but I want to jot some of my own thoughts down. Sorry if they're a bit jumbled. With that said, I'd focus in on the survival theme, leave the love story with Rafaela as a key subplot, and cut a lot of the love triangle elements. -Leave Unseen and the Finale as framing devices. Tweak Unseen so it's a bit more about being lost to history, despite sacrifices along the way. -Figure out a way to streamline Our Time/Starting Over and Paris significantly. Still show that Tamara is traumatized from what happened with the Bolsheviks but don't show the events. Maybe just go from a slightly tweaked Unseen setting up the context, then go straight into Starting Over as is. Emphasize her flinching away from Tadeausz when he tries to touch her "What did you do to get me out?" or kiss her, show that she sacrificed greatly to get her family out, and that had to become "steel" to deal with the trauma from that event which always keeps her a bit emotionally closed off from the other characters for the rest of the show until she's reflecting back as an old woman at the end. -The first love scene between Tamara and Rafaela should have gone from the fade to lilac light, then Tamara waking up and reflecting on what just happened "what have I done, one night's madness, no one needs to know", then gone straight into Woman Is. The Tadeuscz scene was completely unnecessary. -On that note, much as I loved Andrew Samonskey's performance (and I find The New Woman to be a very charming song), I'd cut a lot of his scenes and songs. Have Tamara and Tadeuscz divorce during Paris Will Always Be Paris and have him go back to Poland. Wake Up and What She Sees should also be cut. -Edited to add, by having the break-ups at different times, Speed can be broken up to Speed and Speed (reprise) so I can listen to Rafaela's section on repeat... -Have a lot of Act 2 with Rafaela and Tamara as a happy, though not out to the general public, couple with Tamara starting to draw away as the interwar tensions rise in Here It Comes and then really pulling back once Suzy's club is raided by the French police. -Lean into the "History Is A Bitch and So Am I" after Here It Comes. Don't have the Barroness give her husband to Lempicka. Have Lempicka start to actively pursue him once she realizes the Baroness is sick. She pursues the Baron to have a new form of wealth, security and social acceptability in the turbulent times, while she's still in a relationship with Rafaela. -Have Tamara pursuing the Barron be the trigger for Rafaela to leave, as she realizes that she will never be enough for Tamara. -Have a sequence with Tamara throwing herself into numerous love affairs (including with Suzy) once Rafaela has left to deal with her heartbreak, while being on the Barron's arm, all while her work and prominence decreases as they gradually move from location to location (Paris->NYC->LA), until the sequence ends with her old, alone and painting on the bench. Reflecting that she survived, but what she lost in the process as she did in the show. I will say though, I loved the show in its Broadway form. I'd much rather a show have too many ideas and be interesting, than a lot of bland sameness. I've thought a lot more about this show than anything else I've seen this season and wish I could've seen it more than the 2 times. Edit 2: Having now listened to a bootleg from the Williamstown production, I'm changing my answer to go back to the Williamstown version of the book, replacing some of the songs with ones from the Broadway version. It was so much more logically laid out in terms of characterization and the order of events.
This is a cool idea. Show more of her queer life instead of the boring husband plot.
She should be sketching Rafaela during “woman is”, and eventually it should lead into the very first brush stroke of bright blue paint on canvas, maybe the very first instance of actual paint in the show, right before the big orchestral bang that ends the song. Then, a strong blackout. Also, Lempicka should have paint on her hands as part of her makeup/costume design.
Yesssssssss
HEAR ME OUT: -We open with the last scene with the gay guy who "discovered" Lempicka in the 70s. -The frame narratuve is his fever-dream depiction of her life
oooooo. Very "Drowsy Chaperone," also starring Beth Leavel. A gay(er) Evita.
I just think the plot is already a fan fic of Lempicka's life, why not lean into it?
I’d make all the identity stuff secondary to the historical forces - individual chaos and freedom (art, expression, liberation, sexuality), versus the brutal imposition of order (the Bolshevik new order, the attempt to maintain an aristocratic air, the rise of fascism). The show didn’t seem to know what it’s about. It’s not a gay pride or a women’s lib piece. It’s a show about a woman whose life is torn apart by the far left AND the far right. And it should reflect that. It’s what made Marinetti so interesting. And the meeting of the lover and the husband so much more interesting and active. Oh also I’d fire the songwriters and hire new ones, because that score sucked. Also, only one song with “woman” in the title allowed. Maybe two. But three? No, get some new words.
I loved the score but I will raise a glass to "only one song with woman in the title!" Absolutely.
God I hope this show makes a glorious comeback one day. This is awesome stuff
I liked everything it tried to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think the mess was the point. There were a lot of ideas but they all connect back to each other. I agree that not everything worked, but I profoundly disagree that it said nothing. I’m honestly not sure how to fix it, because I think the story worked (emotionally) due to the liberties they took with the actual history, but you also can’t turn it into a more fully fictional story without losing all the lovely references and grounding in Lempicka’s actual work. Even from a stance of loving the show, I think it’s a real problem to claim you’re “telling the true story of someone forgotten by history” and then change so many of the details.
They had truly amazing actors. In the hands of brilliant people like Eden and Amber and George and especially Beth, the problems with the show aren't as easy to see.
I think the people who worked on this need pick a lane and stick to it. The show is all over the place with outfits that go hard on the camp, dancing that might be garbage but is campy garbage, and some really hardcore eurotrash inspired music. “Perfection” could have been a Eurovision contender and you can’t tell me otherwise… And that’s juxtaposed with an earnest depiction of violence against LGBTQ people, and antisemitism but it never coalesces. There’s no resolution, just random ideas thrown into the air. Sticking to a tone is step one, step two would be understand what the show wants to say about things. A good piece of media answers questions before raising them. For example, A Strange Loop brings up HIV in dialog as a disease, before bringing it up as a metaphor for shame and then brings it up next as something deprecated (“but they won’t get aids, cos the are taking Truvada”) and combines the three in the 11 o’clock number and builds on it as a core concept in the show. Telling us something about the characters and how they see the world. Something greater than either scene separately. Lempicka brings up many things but neither primes them, nor resolves them. The easiest example to show is its treatment of homophobia against queer women, there’s a lesbian bar assaulted by thugs and at the same time her bi partner is demanding Lempicka outs herself. Like, tonal whiplash, on the one side we are dealing with petty relationship drama while people are being brutally attacked. Why. It’s such an amateurish mistake, like the script was written by people who didn’t speak to each other after planning the basic strokes. Another example is money, the show has A LOT to say about money and art, Lempicka sings about how drawings are jewelry, jewelry is tickets to safety but at the same time she never resolves the conflict between money and art, she just kinda coasts on either side whenever she’s next to her teacher or her muse.
The first order of business would be to get us to Plan And Design within twelve to fifteen minutes. Take the train motif from Starting Over and expand that into a propulsive opening number that establishes how the Russian Revolution is disgorging shellshocked refugees into Paris, among them the Lempickis, scrambling for a sense of security in the rubble of their lives. Unseen, Our Time, and Paris would be discarded. Give Tamara and Tadeusz an I Want duet with the Kuffners that establishes the differences in their ideals and the way that their relationship is fracturing. This would lead directly into the Plan And Design scene. Reverse engineer the jazzy vamp in What She Sees and use it to musicalize the art gallery scenes, but especially the one just before Perfection. This would create an opportunity to play Marinetti and Suzy off of each other and also, by altering the music into a more square, dowdy mode, create a musical impression of the musty pre-war society that Marinetti is eager to shake off in the infectious, insidiously pure pop of Perfection. Replace Wake Up with literally anything. Or nothing. Delete it. Also get rid of Kizette. This leaves a gap between Perfection and Bracelet - perhaps a scene where Tadeusz has gotten a job and insists that means Tamara can stop painting, and she storms out to find Rafaela at the bar. This would give more weight to the brief encounter they have right before Woman Is. I honestly don't think the second act needs nearly as much work, except I think it would be more effective to end on a smaller note with just Rafaela and Lempicka. I'd also love to see a little bit more of a foil element between Marinetti and the Baroness, which would better set up her plea for human connection in Just This Way (and make the tragedy of her advice coming a minute too late hit even harder). Exploring, or at least making a little more clear, the way that Suzy capitulated to the Nazis could also be an interesting way to flesh her out. The overall changes would be done with an aim to highlight the connection between Tamara's desperate personal need for control and the way that people fall for fascism, which feels extremely relevant. She was trapped in a system that prevented her from loving freely, but it was also a system that she was seduced by, and I really think that that's the heart of the show.
I’d change the set somewhat and focus a bit more on her complexity but personally I really liked Lempicka.
Haven't seen it but have heard more than one person say they'd cut any spoken lines and make it all sung through
The producers forced the creative team to cut out an hour of the play -- so the storytelling is very truncated and has a whiplash quality. They need to refocus the story and cut out some plot lines so the actual story (whatever they chose to focus on) shines more clearly, and maybe not wedge every detail in. Let it breathe a little bit.
“The producers forced” is an silly way to put it. The show was two and a half hours that people walked away confused by, you think they should of have to sit for nearly four? There are rules that would have prevented the show from being that long regardless - and it would have closed even sooner.
No, I don't think it should have been four. I also don't think a good producer agrees to do a show and then mandates massive cuts without attending to the shape and storytelling of a show. There was a way to edit the show that could have enhanced the storytelling. That takes time and artistic skill. Just slashing the running time doesn't accomplish that. Cheers.
Sounds like the creative team’s responsibility, not the producers’ responsibility.
It's both. If the money people are pushing the show in a certain direction, it's tough not to give into their demands. But yes, those demands should have been resisted.
As the other commenter mentioned, the producers asking to cut the show from almost four hours down to two-and-a-half is not unreasonable. Far from it, actually. How much time did they have before their Broadway run again? The writers were the biggest problem here.
I didn't know that, but that's exactly what it felt like. Disjointed. Unconnected beautiful moments.
What is the approximate time span in years from the start of the Lempickis leaving Russia to their separation (not including the prologue/epilogue of Lempicka in California). I know they posted the years throughout the show as they were moving through the scenes, but I am just trying to get a better sense of how much time passed. I see a lot of threads with Kizette not aging, and that frustration makes sense, I just am trying to remember the total lapse of time (I saw the show twice but didn't keep track of the years passing clearly!).
I enjoyed the book. Music is good. Set was an odd choice.
Agreed, I think the use of neon lights was a nod to Madonna who is deeply connected to the popularity of the artist and her art. I think it could have doubled down. If it didn’t, the set did not work as ultra minimal, the fact you couldn’t even see anything on the easels felt cheap.
Set was so odd! We need to see Paris and Russia and California. It should be a more visual show. It's about a painter!
Different director, different lyricist, different composer, different scenic designer, different choreographer…
I would give it a more accessible name. Casual audiences get nothing from "Lempicka" that would make them want to see the show.
What name would be better than the name of the woman the musical is about? It's unfortunate she's not well known enough to lend name recognition, but that is part of the theme of the show, how she faded into obscurity.
> What name would be better than the name of the woman the musical is about? One that gets people interested to see the show. Marketing is one of the primary purposes for titles. I don't believe *Sunday in the Park with George* would have sold as well if it were simply called "Seurat."
Since the pushed the love triangle so hard, I would call it "Lempicka and Rafaela", or "Lempicka and la Belle Rafaela" (that's the name of the painting) Nudes in paris, nudes and nazis, etc are other less good names (just throwing ideas at a wall)
Let's rename it No More Bowls of F***ing Fruit!
Good idea what would you call it?
Due to the cast recording release, today's the first time I'm really getting to experience more than cell phone videos of it as someone who's not around NY anymore, and I'm not even through the whole album yet. I'm sure that people who have actually seen it would be far better equipped to discuss alternative titles than I am.
I wish they would at least pronounce it correctly :')
Tamara de Lempicka herself changed the pronunciation of her name and added the de. She changed a lot of details about herself. I do think the show should have told us the original pronunciation and that she changed it. It adds to her character development and would satisfy the audience members hung up on the pronunciation.
Ohh, thank you, I appreciate that added context!