“Lempicka” is an ambitious but clumsy bio-musical about a little-known artist

Say the words Art Deco and most people think of Miami Beach architecture and hotels. But they also apply to the chic and tubular paintings of the modernist artist Tamara de Lempicka, the title character of “Lempicka,” the fervently ambitious but chaotically conflicted musical comedy from writer-lyricist Carson Kreitzer and composer Matt Gould, starring Eden Espinosa as the Polish-born bisexual known for her spectacularly cool portrayals filled with curvy yet crystalline expressions of the predominantly female form. Madonna is a famous fan.

Was de Lempicka, a little-known name in the United States, well suited to anchoring a commercial Broadway musical? Even if we're talking about Dali or Picasso, it's still difficult to make painters and their works sing and dance unless there's more reason than meets the eye here.

Indeed, the perceived need to dabble in enough sexy, modern spice on Broadway to appeal to a wider audience may well be what torpedoed a potentially appealing show that could have presented itself more easily as a feminist drama and not musical in a less pressured space like the Longacre Theater. , where director Rachel Chavkin and the performers, well aware of their need to liven up this awkward bio-musical, didn't have to push so hard.

These are among the most overwrought and off-center performances of the Broadway musical season so far, even though they come from some of the most talented actors. The same could be said of Raja Feather Kelly's choreography, which makes it feel like we're all boxing with de Lempicka in a timeless bacchanal, but struggles to find a vocabulary anchored in place or theme.

There is no doubt that Kreitzer was attracted to the potentially transgressive elements of Lempicka's biography, given that the painter was both half-Jewish and sexually adventurous. De Lempicka was living in Warsaw during the Russian Revolution of 1917, which meant that she and her husband, Tadeusz Lempicki (Andrew Samonsky), had to flee the Bolsheviks, eventually landing with a daughter, Kizette (Zoe Glick), a tall young actress trapped in a (poorly scripted and poorly costumed child's part), in the fervent but male-dominated Parisian art scene of the 1920s and 1930s, before ultimately having to flee that too.

In bustling Paris, de Lempicka is taught by the enigmatic Marinetti (stereotypically played by George Abud), enjoys the patronage of the Baron and Baroness (Nathaniel Stampley and Beth Leavel), and (in the series at least) falls in love with Rafaela (Amber Iman) while revealing a preference for immortalizing predominantly wealthy women who colored outside the lines of the time.

Lempicka is not quite a hagiography, but the series clearly gives the impression that its subject has not received due recognition and sets out to present a revisionist argument and make her a progressive heroine. . Whether this musical offers an accurate representation of de Lempicka's politics or sexuality in the current context of the early 20th century is open to debate. But the husband she selflessly saves from the Bolsheviks appears here as an inert guy compared to the radiant Rafaela, one of the painter's most famous models. (Beautiful Rafaela) and the main point of the love triangle constructed by Kreitzer.

This focus allows Iman to deliver the most compelling performance of the evening, but with all due respect to Espinosa, who certainly puts heart and soul into her work. At times, however, during the performance I saw, I felt like the star was worried that the audience would laugh at the awkward lyrics, rather than being drawn empathetically to his side. In fact, both were true at different times.

Espinosa treats her character as a larger-than-life diva, no doubt trying to fulfill the standard Broadway mission. This notion certainly has historical basis, and Goulds' score has some numbers that match (women being the best), but the book is too witless for the character to find a way into the audience's hearts.

Musicals that are too enamored with their own real-life subjects (like this one, which I'm sure the painter's estate had a hand in) often fail to see the increasing predictability of their now-familiar tropes.

Chavkin and his creators (the over-the-top set is by Riccardo Hernandez, the costumes are by Paloma Young, and the lighting by Bradley King) throw all sorts of tricks at the material to make it hip and current, but the scattered book simply pushes the most of them.

Frankly, the show would have been much better if it had simply evoked a shrewd and brilliant artist from this richest European era. Pushing De Lempicka so aggressively through today's ideological and aesthetic filters, however unconscious the act may be, has the effect of nullifying his singular ambivalence and complexity.