Patti LuPone’s long-running concert piece Matters of the Heart unfolded on the stage of the National Historic Landmark The Auditorium Theatre not as a greatest-hits parade, but as a seasoned artist’s intimate conversation with her own past. Premiering some 25 years ago at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York City, the show has aged not into nostalgia, but into something more textured: a living scrapbook of memory, mischief, heartbreak, and hard-won grace.
LuPone has always commanded a fiercely loyal LGBTQ following, and the sold-out house in Chicago testified to that enduring bond. The atmosphere felt at times like a cabaret. You could sense an audience primed not merely to applaud, but to commune. There was something for everyone here—Broadway diehards, pop romantics, and those who come for the diva energy and stay for the vulnerability.
Accompanied by a pianist and a string quartet, LuPone curated a program that balanced theatrical bravura with intimate confession. Her Broadway selections landed with the authority of a performer who has lived inside these songs. “I’m In Love with a Wonderful Guy” from South Pacific sparkled; “Not a Day Goes By” from Merrily We Roll Along unfurled in aching, mature regret. “Being Alive” from Company—the great anthem of ambivalent longing—rang with the clarity of someone who has wrestled with love and come back wiser, if not unscarred. “Back to Before” from Ragtime surged with emotional velocity, while her unexpected, intriguingly restrained take on “Easy to Be Hard” from Hair reframed youthful protest as weary, rueful remembrance.
LuPone’s comic timing remains lethal. Her wry humor bubbled up in “Shattered Illusions,” “Better Off Dead,” and “I Never Do Anything Twice,” songs that let her weaponize self-awareness and mischief in equal measure. She skewers romance and ego with relish, but never without implicating herself in the joke. This is the diva who knows her myth and plays with it. And the surprises. “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys arrived like a soft confession, stripped of pop gloss and steeped in tenderness. “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper was rendered not as a radio staple but as a promise dedicated to her family. These choices reveal LuPone’s instinct for emotional translation, taking familiar songs and making them speak in a new dialect.
Most affecting were the quieter moments, where LuPone let her guard down. In “Unexpressed,” “Alone Again (Naturally),” “The Air That I Breathe,” “Sand and Water,” “My Father,” and “Look Mummy, No Hands,” she showed a softer, contemplative side—less brassy legend, more vulnerable human being. These songs felt like pages torn from a private journal, offered up without ornament. It was here that Matters of the Heart earned its title.
LuPone, being the diva that she be, did get into a little kerfuffle this past summer with the theatre community. She apologized, took responsibility and, as these things tend to go in a resilient artistic ecosystem, everyone seems to have moved on. There are bigger issues pressing on the country today, and this evening reminded us that art’s role is not to litigate old wounds, but to open space for empathy.
In a moment when America feels increasingly brittle, Matters of the Heart lands as a small act of emotional repair. We could all use more love in this country right now—more listening, more generosity of spirit, more room for contradiction. LuPone, in all her fire and fragility, offered exactly that: a reminder that hearts break, heal, and, if we’re lucky, learn to sing again.
National Historic Landmark
The Auditorium
50 E Ida B Wells Dr, Chicago, IL 60605
312.341.2300
