Kara Wilson's one-woman, one-act sketches de Lempicka's life from her birth in Warsaw to her flight to the United States in 1939 — anecdotes about lovers, models, and models who became her lovers — but the facts emerge with encyclopedic detachment. Actress and singer Rene Goodwin presents de Lempicka with the same sort of bold, angular strokes that make de Lempicka's paintings so powerful, but the approach isn't nearly so effective onstage.

Wilson skims the surface with generalities. "I did not like the messiness of the impressionists," her de Lempicka opines, one of a plethora of unremarkable statements. She explains art deco as "traditional subjects painted with modern techniques," providing no insight into art or artist.

Deco Diva more successfully details de Lempicka's personal life, but these potentially juicy details likewise emerge vaguely and dispassionately. "I have never seen the need to fall in love," de Lempicka announces with a faint glimmer of personality, "to enjoy a good love affair." Nice quip, but it's no substitute for genuine feeling.

The tiny Shubin Theatre — 40 seats and a playing area smaller than most foyers — seems ideal for a solo confessional, but neither the script nor Goodwin's performance (directed by Neill Hartley) match the Shubin's intimacy. Goodwin's stiffness, acerbated by a matronly dress, includes a tendency to speak down to the floor and to the walls. Moreover, she makes the actor's mistake (seen too often in audition monologues and amateur Shakespeare) of physically acting out many anecdotes, e.g. when recalling a search for her husband, arrested during the Russian Revolution, she runs to and fro distractedly. A person telling a story relates the past to an audience, rather than displaying it in unconvincing pantomime.

Goodwin's considerable musical talents make the most of songs that, while entertaining, seem intended only to stretch out the hourlong show. De Lempicka calls out to unseen maid Clotilde for music, and sings along to Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin," Kurt Weill's "Mon Ami" and a few other tunes perhaps meant to inject emotional adrenaline into the weakhearted script.

Tamara de Lempicka was apparently a passionate, mercurial, groundbreaking artist, but Deco Diva only tells us so; the play that reveals her soul hasn't been written yet.

(m_cofta@citypaper.net)