Review Roundup: WAR PAINT, Starring Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole Opens in Chicago

Chicago's Goodman Theatre presents WAR PAINT, a new musical starring Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole as cosmetics titans Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, respectively. WAR PAINT opened last night, June 28, 2016, and runs through August 14, 2016. How did the production fare with the critics? Let's find out.

Misha Davenport, BroadwayWorld: And if you are tempted to go into the show hoping to be either Team Christine or Team Patti, you are liable to emerge realizing this is a draw. Throughout the show, each actress plays to her strengths and talent-wise they are both very much equals. LuPone's feisty immigrant turned industry giant spoke more to me than Ebersole's Canadian farmgirl who longs to be embraced by the upper class society that accounts for the majority of her patrons. There is much to be admired in both performances, though. Here are two women who reinvent themselves and ruthlessly pursue success at the expense of everything else.

Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times: Rest assured, this is a musical whose beauty is far more than skin deep, with its many layers accruing gradually but confidently. It not only explores the psyches of two "outsiders" who refuse to be denied, but captures the enduring discrimination rooted in gender, social class and age. And it traces the evolution of a major industry, along with all the shifting attitudes about female beauty, workplace opportunity, and marketing and media trends that went with them.

Peter Marks, The Washington Post: The show, which as a result of the matchup of LuPone and Ebersole is one of the most highly anticipated new productions of the year, had its official opening Monday night at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. Under Michael Greif's assured direction - bolstered by the soignée fashion sense of inspired costume designer Catherine Zuber - "War Paint" is a welcome reminder of old-school Broadway craftsmanship and of the offbeat subjects that musical minds can illuminate with surprising elegance.

Barbara Vitello, Daily Herald: Greif's cast, most of whom boast Broadway bona fides, is first-rate. As is music director/conductor Lawrence Yurman's 13-piece orchestra. But "War Paint" belongs to Ebersole and LuPone, brilliant actresses whose magnificent voices shake the rafters. Each stops the show: Ebersole does it with the grand, emotionally wrenching "Pink," in which Arden reflects on the color that represents her brand and the family she will never have. Moments later, LuPone stops it again with the striking "Forever Beautiful," a modern, angular ballad in which an unflinchingly self-aware Rubinstein recognizes that art, not artifice, endures.

Steven Oxman, Variety: The sophisticated and rewarding new musical "War Paint," about the decades-spanning rivalry of cosmetic titans Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, manages remarkably to be many things at once. First and foremost, it's a double display of delicious diva-dom, withPatti LuPone as Rubinstein and Christine Ebersole as Arden expertly commanding the stage for most of the show's two and half hours. And given that they are embodying two of the first women to build business empires, the decades-spanning story also manages to capture the tale of mid-century capitalism, alongside the intrusions of World War II, the introduction of television, the evolving roles of women and the changing notions of beauty. In other words... well, America.

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune: "War Paint," the intriguingly juicy and glamorous, if overly binary and yet underwritten, new musical at the Goodman Theatre under the fluid direction of Michael Greif, really is all about the major generals. Unveiling a new and stylistically diverse score by composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie, the formidably and formatively intimidating Patti LuPone plays Helena Rubinstein while Christine Ebersole, a genteel actress and vocalist of singular elegance, essays Elizabeth Arden.

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: Fortunately, Mr. Frankel and Mr. Korie's score plays knowingly to its stars' respective strengths, with swirling, lyrical melodies for Arden and jagged, Kurt Weillian ones for Rubinstein. Ms. Ebersole - who collaborated previously with the "War Paint" team to Tony-winning brilliance in "Grey Gardens" - brings not just enameled chipperness but also a startling glimpse of genuine, self-surprising pain to her singing. Her climactic solo of reckoning, "Pink," is a knockout. So is Ms. LuPone's parallel number (you can imagine the show's writers dividing up the star turns very carefully). Of course, these women each have their own sui generis approaches to a song. Ms. LuPone, an idiosyncratic belter, wrestles melodies to the mat in freestyle, while Ms. Ebersole is a sparkling precisionist.

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