There are no ing茅nues in the musical War Paint. Instead, there are two grown women at the height of their powers, battling to control a world they created.
Those women are the founders of the modern cosmetics industry, Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. The show, which is now in previews at the Nederlander Theatre before opening April 6, spotlights their real-life rivalry, and we see them vie for everything from customers to status to the loyalties of men.
The creative team鈥攍yricist Michael Korie, composer Scott Frankel, and bookwriter Doug Wright鈥攑urposely focused on their professional peaks. 鈥淏ecause they have these identities that they鈥檝e invented, that gives you a whole language to play with,鈥� says Korie.
Elizabeth and Helena are both women running businesses in the middle of the 20th century, when men controlled most boardrooms. 鈥淭hey think that the nation and the world have deeded this industry to women,鈥� says Korie. 鈥淭hat turns out not to be the case.鈥�
Frankel adds, 鈥淓ven at the top of their game, they couldn鈥檛 do everything a man could鈥檝e done.鈥� That鈥檚 why the first act features the duet 鈥淚f I鈥檇 Been a Man,鈥� in which the moguls reflect on the indignities faced by powerful women.
Meanwhile, there鈥檚 the question of makeup itself. Despite what Arden and Rubinstein might have insisted, not every woman feels good about painting her face. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what makes them so complicated,鈥� Wright says. 鈥淭hey shattered every glass ceiling, and yet they built their empires, some would say, on women鈥檚 self-esteem.鈥�
鈥淭hey were women of such great substance, both of them, that we were determined not to lampoon them,鈥� Frankel adds.
The production鈥檚 stars feel the same way. According to Wright, Patti LuPone (Rubinstein) and Christine Ebersole (Arden) are only interested in portraying rich human beings. 鈥淭hese are two of the greatest actresses in American musical theatre,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nything that has taken the script in too frivolous a direction, they鈥檝e resisted. We have very strong safeguards against any facile portrait of Elizabeth and Helena.鈥�
