[ Featuring
Original Broadway Cast of Lempicka ]
[TAMARA, spoken]
Do you know who I am?
The baroness? Old, eccentric bat?
The baroness with a paintbrush?
Reduced to a novelty act, and now not even that?
[TAMARA]
Now, the Hollywood stars —
The closest this ridiculous place has to royalty —
Have faded away, and then replaced on all the screens
By vapid children in blue jeans
How did I wind up here?
My beauty all behind me?
How did I wind up here?
Forgotten worlds inside me?
Unseen...
Unseen...
Once, the world knew my name
They fought to buy my work — the rich, the royalty
I painted them all, I made myself the living test
And you were no one if not painted by
Lempicka!
How the dandies fought for my commissions
Attended exhibitions, vied to buy
Anything my brushes ever touched
But, the real art was how to survive...
How did I wind up here?
My beauty all behind me?
How did I wind up here?
Forgotten worlds inside me?
Unseen...
I tangled with a world you can't imagine:
Luxury and deprivation
Princes fought to light my cigarette
Crawling up from nothing, I created for myself
Something that the world had never seen:
I painted what a woman could be...
Do you know who I am?
An old woman who doesn't give a damn that history has passed her by
History's a bitch, but so am I!
How did I wind up here?
[TAMARA & ENSEMBLE]
Unseen...
Unseen...
Unseen...
Unseen...
[TAMARA, spoken]
Do you know who I am?
The strange girl with a paintbrush?
Today I will marry the only man for me:
I will be a Lempicka!