patti's bratty bob

"My nightly ritual as a cast member of the 2017 Broadway production of “War Paint” was to watch Patti LuPone perform her 11 o’clock number, “Forever Beautiful,” as I waited backstage for our final scene together. I loved watching Patti, as the cosmetics magnate Helena Rubinstein, sing this full-spectrum moment, because I got to witness yet another thrilling performance by the greatest belter in the history of musical theater.

Night after night as she savored Michael Korie’s lyrics about the solace and eternal nature of art in the face of earthly abandonment, set to Scott Frankel’s cinematic music, she started low and angular, then ultimately soared to the top of the belfry for the whole town to hear. I marveled at her vocal strength and fortitude, in awe of how she would build this song to a climax, without a waver of intention or passion. At the song’s finish, I was always left in shivering goose bumps. If I ever imagined going on in her place, and singing that high-wire song, this soprano could only resort to mixing the note, a reasonable facsimile that would never achieve the authentic sound of a true belter. Ah, maybe next life.

Toward the end of the run, which came earlier than planned — Patti needed a hip replacement — it was upsetting to see her offstage before the final scene, barely able to walk. She was in a tremendous amount of pain, her face an agonized grimace, yet when she made her entrance, by sheer force of her will, she commanded the pain to vanish without a trace while she delivered every note and every word at full throttle, full capacity and full command of her gifts, belting and otherwise."

— CHRISTINE EBERSOLE, singer and actor