In “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” directed by Justin Gordon for the Complex (East) Theatre, Steve Martin’s frothy crowd-pleasing drama/comedy, comedy/drama, either/or/neither, an intriguing premise, a fine set, and some excellent performances make for an occasionally entertaining evening.
While the story doesn’t go anywhere and the fireworks that attend a first encounter between Pablo Picasso (Branden Morgan), 23 a few years from painting his groundbreaking “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” and Albert Einstein Jonathan Biver), 25, a few years from publishing his equally monumental “General Theory of Relativity” prove to herald the anticlimax of the young century, there’s enough anecdotal humor carried by charismatic performances so that the production doesn’t sink into a fourth dimension hole.
A top notch ensemble cast, Gordon’s game attempt to stage a story that doesn’t know if it’s a drama or a comedy, and a red-hued set that inspired my chum to want to belly up to the bar for a wee dram before the curtain contribute to an okay though hardly edifying production. The production’s tone is upbeat if frivolous; it treats the protagonists like celebrities, not geniuses; it reads like a cross between Hollywood Squares and an artist studio kegger: it’s pleasant but, for a story that trumpets the discovery of the fourth dimension in art and science, it’s overall effect is confined to the flat second dimension.
Set in a 1904 Paris bar, Gordon paints a picture of potential (Picasso wasn’t quite yet Picasso, Einstein wasn’t quite yet Einstein), bohemian free love, the prosperity of posterity’s god-like status versus the moment’s celebrity, all framed in a red hot bar. Freddy (Andrew McCarty) is the owner and bartender of a drinking hole that’s famous for being an artist hangout. His wife, Germaine (Maria Pallas), helps Freddy around the bar and, when he’s isn’t around, helps herself to the local talent. Small bladdered barfly Gaston (Joe Thomas), studies women the way connoisseurs study art; and neither touches the objects of their study.
Einstein comes in for an assignation with the Countess (Betsy Mugavero); both hilariously believe in a romantic theory of relativity, which translates to making plans to meet at another bar but realizing the odds are good that they’ll eventually run into each other at the Lapin Agile. Suzanne (Betsy Mugavero) awaits the arrival of Picasso who seduced and gave her a drawing. She thinks she’s something more than any other jolie jeune fille franciase whose path he crosses. Sagot (Brian Normoyle) is an art dealer who’s more interested in the commercial potential for this new fangled art than it’s life-changing capabilities. And Charles Dabernow Schmendiman (Quinn Mattfeld) is a celebrity-hungry, immensely funny charlatan who’s pompous, boisterous and exceptionally untalented. Picasso and Einstein meet - so what? - deals are struck, some art and physics palaver is bandied about like a shuttlecock and then, it ends.
The actors effectively communicated a sense of farce, which seems to be the only direction in which Gordon could take this. There were some lowbrow laughs that weren’t overplayed. There were some funny scenes related to infidelity. Pallas’s engaging Germaine was involved in a spirited debate as to whether she was post-this or neo-that. Biver shined with his droll Wally Cox take on Einstein, though his funniest scene showed him displaying his idiot savant (or idiot, or savant) prowess helping McCarthy’s Freddy with his bookkeeping. Morgan did a fine job strutting his Picasso around like a rutting peacock while not turning the Spaniard into a complete wanker. Thomas’s Gaston garnered many laughs as a man who grasped he could pursue his hobby while, because of his advanced age, not get accused of hitting on the young women. And the funniest of all, because he wasn’t hamstrung by trying to be profound and pedestrian at the same time, was Mattfield’s Schmendiman. He dazzled us with his wondrously superficial facade, his inconsequential bluster, and his utter inability to realize that being a genius is not the same as saying you’re one.
But the production comes to a standstill when Picasso and, to a lesser extent, Einstein, deliver long-winded expositions on that they’re working on. Though both are coming at the same thing from opposite directions, their characters are also the victim of a defective script that tries to be literate and comical but is only cute; whose two main characters are trying too hard to be funny, profound, human, and god-like, all at the same time; and whose themes are too numerous to get nailed down to a unified field theory of effective plot resolution.
Performances are 8 pm, Thu. – Sat, 2 pm, Sun. Tickets are $10-$20. The Theatre is located at 6468 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood. For more info call 323-960-7714 or visit www.plays411.net/picasso.
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