Picture it: Paris, around the turn of the century. You're sitting in a small caf?© enjoying your absinthe when a small Spaniard walks through the door with a flourish. All attention turns to him, and you begin to wonder who this character is - is he a genius or a madman? He's both. He's Picasso, you're sitting in the famous "Lapin Agile" caf?© in Montmartre, home to most artists residing in Paris at the time.
Now try this one: You made a date with your sweetheart to meet at a certain caf?© at a specific time, and you really want to meet her. To ensure that you will both be in the same place at the same time, you go instead to the Lapin Agile where neither of you has ever been before. Logical? Yes, if you're Einstein and you don't believe that the time and place of the meeting are relevant... and your sweetheart thinks like you do.
What would it be like to be a fly on the wall in the caf?© where Picasso and Einstein meet? Would the creator in Picasso recognize the inventor in Einstein? Would they disagree about the aesthetics of the world and the universe? Or would they crack one-liners and talk about sex all night? No matter what the subject of conversation, the sheer brainpower in the room would be enough to entertain an audience for an hour and a half.
And that's just what Pen, Paint, and Pretzels' upcoming production of Steve Martin's play, Picasso At The Lapin Agile, does. With Martin's characteristically philosophical and punchy humor, Picasso explores the humor in the intellectual tete-a-tetes so common in the streets of Paris at the time. The triptych in the Lapin Agile is composed of an artist, a physicist and a god - if you're from the South. Martin gathers three of the most influential men in the 20th century, some sexually-charged women and bar types, and explores the possible consequences. As his character Gaston exclaims, "You take a couple of geniuses, you put 'em in a room together, and wow!"
Picasso (senior Matt Waterson), is represented as an extreme womanizer in the midst of his blue period. He takes the stage as a conceited artist, drunk with his own power and influence. In direct contrast to his celebrity is Einstein (freshman Andrew Sokol), who sits casually in the corner and occasionally comments about physics and astronomy as it relates to conversation. He is still young and full of ideas, as well as in the process of finishing his "book," which the audience will recognize as his special theory of relativity.
Picasso is involved initially in resolving the conflict that arises when Suzanne (junior Rachel Jablin), one of his former conquests, enters the Lapin Agile in search of another night of passion. When asked if she knows Picasso, she says simply and shrewdly, "Twice." Einstein pays attention to his sweetheart the Countess (sophomore Ashely De Marchena), and the two geniuses barely notice each other for the first half of the play.
During this point, the play explores the relationship between the owner of the bar, Freddy (sophomore James Foster-Keddie) and his practical and smart girlfriend, Germaine (sophomore Lauren D'avella). Sagot (sophomore Melissa Holman), Picasso's art dealer, appears and is all business and attitude. As if the play needed more comic relief, there's Gaston (senior Phil Devaul), a fixture at the bar and a stereotypical French drunk, who runs to the bathroom every five minutes and simply bursts with outrageous exclamations. After being told that he "...can't just insult somebody out of the blue," Gaston contends, "But I'm French!"
The actors come from diverse backgrounds. Devaul and Jablin have both been very active in theater at Tufts. For Foster-Keddie, Picasso is his first show.
"They get along fabulously," says co-director Rah-nee Kelly of the cast. "They are all wonderful, cool, talented individuals."
The humor in the play is typical of Martin, whose blend of slapstick and situation comedy is enhanced by a tendency toward the intellectual. All Of Me, a collaborative film with Lily Tomlin made in 1984, examined the philosophical mind/body conflict of identity... but you'd never stop laughing long enough during the movie to think about that. Such is the case with Picasso.
"This is a typical Steve Martin play in that it does address philosophical and existential issues," Kelly explains. "It discusses the 'structure' and inner-workings of genius, sexuality as a commodity or tool, the unknown, the future, the potential we all have, the importance of imagination... I could go on for a while." By jumping right into the situation and rolling with every ridiculous new element, the audience is so distracted by the jokes and the strong characters that it would hardly remember the improbability of the sequence of events. But let's not get into probability...
First-time directors Rah-nee Kelly and Megan Kiefer, both sophomores, head up a team of 3P-ers including stage manager Adam Colt, also a sophomore, and lighting director Kalinda Vasquez, a senior. Kelly and Kiefer chose to do Picasso instead of another play, Mona And The Promised Land, thanks to the drawing power of Picasso himself. "It's definitely got a magical quality about it," says Kelly of the play.
Despite some initial staffing problems, including the lack of a technical director until only recently, Picasso looks ready for the opening night. "Also," Kelly says, "this play poses a very interesting technical obstacle in terms of paintings metamorphosing and stars coming out, but we definitely have a handle on them. Our solutions are imaginative, which is fitting because one of the themes of the play is the importance of imagination."
One note: Picasso, the small, balding Spanish artist, is played by a tall, fair-skinned Brit. "Clearly it's a sharp contrast to what the real Picasso was," agrees Kelly, "but that doesn't matter. The world of theater isn't the real world... Just look at Jesus Christ Superstar last year. Jesus was played by Suzanne Corbett."
Picasso is the last 3P's production of the semester and promises to be one of the most memorable. Take some time out of the last full week of classes to exercise your brain in a different direction. Picasso is comedy, no doubt, but it's comedy with a brain. Two brains, actually.
