Picasso At The Lapin Agile

photo: Rod Goodman

Steve Martin's absurdist comedy, which imagines a night early in the twentieth century when Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso cross paths in a Parisian bar, is a lively mix of high wit and low humour: the two men might be off and running with musings on the nature of genius one minute, and the next they're locked in a Wild West-style showdown with their pencils instead of guns. (That ends in a draw, naturally). Despite some of the witty intellectual sparring the play isn't (and doesn't want to go) much deeper than a tickle, but at least it's a smart, invigorating one. This production, at T. Schreiber Studio, is too leisurely-paced to bring off the play's zaniest flights of fancy, but that's really the harshest thing I can say against it: it's otherwise a pleasure: effectively staged, beautifully designed (George Alison deserves special mention for his evocative and detailed set of the turn of the century bar room) and winningly performed.

Also blogged by: [Aaron] and [David]