By Cory Bilicko
Entertainment Writer
Writing a critical analysis of Steve Martin’s play Picasso at the Lapin Agile can make a theatre reviewer a bit self-conscious.
With musings on the notions of genius and inspiration, Picasso contains a poignant scene with a discussion of the concept that artistic quality truly is “in the eye of the beholder,” rendering criticisms of the play almost inconsequential. This mention is by no means an attempt to frontload the work with an injection of immunity to criticism; it’s just one of many insights to arise from an imagined chance meeting between Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso just prior to each making public his Twentieth Century Amazing Idea.
For Einstein, it’s the Special Theory of Relativity— which recognized that the speed of light is the same for all observers, despite relative speeds, and that the laws of physics are the same in any inertial frame of reference.
Picasso‘s contribution is his painting “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” which revolutionized the art world and shaped modern art with its pioneering, shocking form and content.
Picasso at the Lapin Agile was the comedian/actor/sometime New Yorker writer’s first full-length play. Written in 1993, it’s set in the Parisian bar the Lapin Agile (Nimble Rabbit) in 1904. The physicist and artist, with other eccentric bar patrons, debate the “relative” importance of science and art, somehow always returning to topics of beauty and sex.
Indeed, as the Long Beach Playhouse presented its production of Picasso last week, La Grande High School in Oregon was canceling its own performance of the play in response to a parent-driven petition of 137 names opposing it for “people drinking in bars and treating women as sex objects.” In a letter to the town’s newspaper, Martin refuted that assertion and wrote that the students understood that “questionable behaviour sometimes evident in the play is not endorsed.” He further responded by helping to raise funds to move the production to an alternate location, in an effort to prevent the play from “[acquiring] a reputation it does not deserve.”
Unlikely to inspire a petition against its content here in Long Beach, the Playhouse’s production does offer a host of performers who aptly tap into that, dare I say, baseness equally well as the play’s intellectualism. Mitchell Nunn imbues Freddy, the Lapin’s owner and bartender, with a comic precision that usually only comes from an experienced actor such as he. As his counterpart Germaine, Leesel Boulware gives her character the earthiness and astuteness we might not expect from a bar waitress. Representing the purely hedonistic sides of the human condition, Dale Jones, playing Gaston, has a commanding presence on (and off) the stage as he frequently exeunts thanks to his weak bladder and repeatedly chimes in with humorous comments of the prurient variety.
Unfortunately, there are moments that fall somewhat flat when it feels as if the material is in the hands of less seasoned actors; the rhythms and nuances established by the more skilled performers start to drag. It’s not a deficiency of likeability, just a contrast in the mastering of craft. One presence who abates that lull is that of Jeff Asch. As Schmendiman, the ostentatious “inventor” who’s actually clueless on the finer points of scientific and artistic matters, Jeff Asch is that perfect actor for a work of this type; he’s idiosyncratic yet pitch-perfect in his absurdist representation of another 20th Century trademark— commercialism.
Near the end of the story, there’s another figure who emerges. In a play about genius, talent and whether it will be scientific or fine-art achievements that will make the greater impact in the new century, this party-crasher will have suspicious minds rethinking the nature of cultural impact.
Picasso at the Lapin Agile will continue at the Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre through April 11, with Friday and Saturday shows at 8pm and Sunday matinees at 2pm. Tickets are $22 general admission, $20 for seniors and $12 for students with valid ID. The Playhouse is located at 5021 E. Anaheim Street. For more information, call (562) 494-1014 or visit www.lbph.com.
