Holding Space for the Imminent Patti LuPone-aissance
How David Mamet, Donald Tr*mp, Ari Aster and the MCU helped bring forth LuPone’s screen domination.
In 2017, Variety’s Frank DiLella decided to ask the attendees of the 71st Tony Awards a simply question: “Why should President Tr*mp come see your show?” “I’d love for him to see Hamilton,” Leslie Odom Jr. remarked. “Our show’s about welcoming everyone,” Come from Away composer David Hein explained. “[Falsettos] is about a lot of different types of people coming together and forming this sort-of family unit and I think it’s probably a lot of people he has not met so it could have been a good show for him to see,” Andrew Rannnells suggested.
Patti LuPone had a different response from the pack. “Well, I hope he doesn’t, because I won’t perform if he does,” LuPone, nominated for her seventh time that night for War Paint, told DiLella, her expression unchanged. “Really?” he asked. “Really,” she affirmed. “Tell me why,” he pressed. “Because I hate the motherfucker. How’s that?”
This was familiar territory for LuPone. A month earlier, during a sit-down with Broadway.com’s Paul Wontorek, she was asked for her thoughts on Tr*mp. She didn’t mince words.
“He’s a fucking ass motherfucking asshole. He’s a fucking nut, he’s certifiably insane, he has compromised this country and it is tantamount to treason what he just did and why are we not doing anything about it? Why is it taking so long? What the fuck is going on in this country? That’s what I think.”
That, to my memory, was a breakout time for LuPone, long (then and still) regarded as the best of Broadway, but in moments like that, lifted into the cultural zeitgeist for those not lucky enough to witness her on stage. She’s since built an “Andrew Lloyd Weber Memorial Pool” at her Connecticut home with the money she made suing the composter after he replaced her in Sunset Boulevard, called Madonna a “movie killer,” said “fuck Ticketmaster” on CNN’s live New Year’s Eve broadcast, brushed off Kim Kardashian’s acting career by asking “what are you doing with your life?”, went viral after demanding an audience member to stop taking pictures, told an American Theatre Wing patron to wear a mask or “get the fuck out” and, most recently, said Joanna Gleason doesn’t deserve her Tony win. This to say, when Patti LuPone opens her brassy, magnificent trap (as Jack on Will & Grace referred to it), something iconic usually falls out. “‘Controversy’ is my middle name,” she memorably told Vulture.
But it’s thanks, I feel, to Ari Aster, that LuPone is fully immersed in a renaissance that’s seeing her crossover from semi-niche legend to full-tilt mainstream star. Let’s dive in.