Act Three - The Reviews

Look out New York - here comes two powerful women.  I say this about both the characters and the actresses portraying them.  In their latest installment, War Paint, Doug Wright (Book), Scott Frankel (Music), Michael Korie (Lyrics), and Michael Greif (Director), come together to tell us the yet untold story of two very powerful women who were pioneers in the cosmetics industry - Elizabeth Arden (Christine Ebersole) and Helena Rubinstein (Patti LuPone).

With these powerhouses, one would expect a slam-dunk hit.  What was delivered was substantially less than that.  The music was melodious and delightful.  The story was a tad bit long and not exactly the most interesting throughout.  What turned this possible star vehicle into a half baked show was fortunately or unfortunately mostly the fault of Ms. LuPone.  She portrays Ms. Rubinstein with a thick (presumably) Polish accent.  Although it really just sounded Russian.  There was nothing wrong with her vocal abilities - which often blew the roof off.  There was nothing wrong with her acting abilities either.  One hundred percent of the failure was her accent.  Mr. Wright's story is often told through Mr. Korie's lyrics - and when you can't understand a single word in entire song after entire song, it becomes a bit of a problem for the audience to understand what the hell is even going on. While there was some humor in the dialogue also - once again - the accent intercedes and causes confusion.   One of these effects is to turn Ms. Ebersole (Arden) into the dominant, understandable, and significantly more liked character.  An imbalance that does not correct itself throughout the entire show.  Ebersole's portrayal of Arden was pitch perfect, humorous, and sublime.

Note to the director and Mr. Wright - cut the prologue and open the show with Arden's number - it was fantastic, colorful, rousing, and set the mark very high.

At times there are two signatures hanging above the set (Arden and Rubinstein) and occasionally, the actors were under the wrong name.  When you do that in the beginning it's a fairly bad idea.

Costumes (Catherine Zuber) and sets (David Korins) were fantastic.

These two ladies were mavericks of their time and their story is somewhat interesting, but there were too many detours, side stories, and un-explored plot lines.  This script needs a doctor.  It brings new meaning to the phrase "Let's put some lipstick on this pig."

A classic film, All About Eve, staring Bette Davis, begot this Comden & Green musical in 1970 at the Palace Theater staring Lauren Bacall (and later in 1973 on TV starring Bacall and Larry Hagman). In it's endeavors to bring the less-known musicals back to the stage, Encores! ended up with something less than brilliant, bombastic, super and fantastic.

Don't get me wrong - even recovering from the Asian bird flu (or something like that), Christine Ebersole was above average in the leading role. It certainly was a disappointment to see her at less than "full speed". However, the problem was casting, not performance. As a good friend of mine said, "Could Christine Ebersole have been more mis-cast in the role of the aging Margo Channing?" I think not.

Certainly a brief but memorable performance from Mario Cantone and Kate Burton, but nothing in all of this would suggest it's anywhere close to a Broadway revival ala Gypsy with Lupone - (the last success story from Encores!) My favorite scenes were perhaps the full cast numbers -the show's title number "Applause" and "But Alive". Ebersole seemed to be having as much fun mixing it up with the gays as Bacall in this 1973.

It seemed appropriate for an "all star" semi-staged reading, but I'm going to guess that we won't be seeing Applause on Broadway again any time soon.

Grey Gardens is Christine Ebersole's show to shine in. And boy-oh-boy - did she ever! This recent transfer to Broadway is the story of Edith Bouvier Beale, her daughter, Edie, and their extreme relationship. The show is filled with wealthy family drama, the back-story of their connections to the Kennedy Clan, their extreme transformation with age, and of course a good dose of music - something Edith herself used to fill the many voids in her life.

Act I portrays the gay days (taken both literally and figuratively!) of the family in 1941 at the Beale Summer House - Grey Gardens - out in the Hamptons. This is the time period that young Edie meets and almost marries a young Joe Kennedy. Christine plays Mother Edith - the strong willed, powerful, yet extremely vulnerable matriarch of the Beale Family (while her husband is off fooling around on Wall Street and cheating on his wife). Kudos go out to John McMartin who plays a wonderfully entertaining Father to Edith - Major Bouvier.

In Act II Christine transforms herself into her own daughter - and Mary Louise Wilson takes over as her aging Mother in 1974 - - in what can only be described as the extreme decline of Grey Gardens. She is a recluse, the house is falling apart and they are both quite eccentric and have become locally infamous for the squalor they live in - - So much so that Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis actually made several public statements on the situation of her aunt and cousin.

The quick witted and sharp tongued Ebersole tears thru both acts with gusto. Showing us at first her desire as Edith to impress and entertain - and then later her personal struggle as Edie with having her life "ruined" by her mother. In the end - she's not strong (or sane) enough to leave - despite her regrets, anger, and desire to do so.

The feelings of gaiety and lyrical music turn to hopelessness, desperation, and squalor in a mere 3 hours on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theater on West 48th.