ome time after “The Jerk” and
before he started making movies like “Cheaper
by The Dozen,” funnyman Steve Martin wrote
a play called “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” (Fast
Rabbit, for those who don’t habla French).
The play, a sort of “What If…?” fairy
tale about a 23-year-old Pablo Picasso and a 25-year-old
Albert Einstein meeting at a Paris bar in 1904 and
the various characters who inhabit said bar, is a
beautiful, brilliant homage to the 20th Century.
The University of Utah’s Lab Theatre opens
its production of the play tonight.
Two geniuses, Einstein (Abraham M. Adams) and Picasso
(Collin Elliot), along with a third, time-travelling,
blue-suede-shoe-wearin’ lip-snearin’ nameless
genius from the future—and Memphis (Joe Silverzweig)—are
set to ring in a new era of science, art and music.
In the meantime, in a bar in Paris, they marvel at
the optimism that can only come at the first decade
of a new century. It is 1904, after all, and the
people are ready to set aside the Age of Indifference
and reach a new era of an unspoken, shining promise.
Maybe I’m still getting over the high of watching
the play. Hence the flower-y language. But if that
was Martin’s intention—to remind the
audience that genius, that unspoken quality that
is more than “just brains,” can, at any
time, set the world on its head, is truly an incredible,
fragile thing—then Martin has done his job.
It is 2004 after all, 100 years later and the dawn
of a Whole New Century with who knows what surprises
in store for us. If it was Martin’s intention
to let the audience go home with an overall good
feeling about humanity, then he has certainly achieved
this goal.
And so has the Lab Theatre. It’s damn near
impossible to fail with material this bright, funny
and heartfelt, and the Lab does not disappoint. The
owner of the Lapin Agile, Freddy (Josh Pierson) is
something of a catalyst, setting up the drinks for
Einstein and Picasso to shoot down as they shoot
down each other’s theories about art, science
and the universe. Off in the corner is an “older
gentleman,” Gaston (James C. Morris), who chimes
in with various endearing comments.
Meanwhile the women, Freddy’s girlfriend Germaine
(Nicole Vernon), Picasso’s art dealer Sagot
(Kelsie Jepsen), Suzanne, the Countess and a random
female admirer (all played by Kristen Bailey) act
as the muses—and occasional masters—of
the geniuses in question. Oh, and acting as the monkey
in the wrench is the bizarre, purposefully irritating
and damn hilarious Charles Dabernow Schemendiman,
(Richard Wall), inventor of Schmendimanite and the
guy who came up with saying “cheese” when
getting your picture taken. With very necessary over-acting,
Wall demonstrates what an idiot is capable of in
a room full of harbingers of the future.
Meanwhile, those harbingers (the only ones in the
play other than Gaston who have accents, by the way)
stand front-and-center stage and marvel at the secrets
the unknown future has to share. The play ends with
those three geniuses, Einstein, Picasso and, let’s
face it, Elvis, looking at the stars, marvelling,
marvelling at the universe as the stars write their
names in the sky.
You know, the 20th Century was a pretty damn good
century when you think about it.
“Picasso at the Lapin Agile” opens tonight
and runs through Sunday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. with
a Friday matinee at 4:30 p.m. Tickets are $7, $5 if
you’re a student. For tickets or information,
call or visit the Kingsbury Hall (581-7100) or Union
box office or go to www.arttix.org.
jordan@red-mag.com
