Review: Trenton's Open Book Theatre does 'Picasso' proud
Ask a roomful of thoughtful people to identify the most influential figures of the 20th Century, and the names Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso will likely turn up on most everyone's short list. Actor-writer-musician Steve Martin seems to agree. His 1993 comedy “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” imagines a random meeting between the two men at a Paris bar in 1904, when both were on the verge of greatness.
The current staging by the Open Book Theatre in Trenton captures the spirit of Martin’s comedy both in its atmosphere and performances. This begins with set designer Bradley Byrne’s depiction of the antique Lapin Agile and its cafe tables and a towel-burnished wooden bar. Above it hangs a large painting of sheep in a fog-covered pasture.
Many of the characters in the play have something to say about the painting, revealing both their knowledge of art and their attitude toward the century just hatched. For the proprietor, Freddy (Joshua Brown), it is a nod to tradition and his family history. "Got it out of my grandmother‘s house just after she died — well, actually, while she was dying,” he deadpans while bringing some gallows humor to the play’s crazy quilt of comic styles.
Einstein (Alexander Sloan) sees the big picture and takes note of how the sheep appear so small in the vastness of the green and gray. When Picasso (Nick Yocum) finally arrives, about 20 minutes in, he sees the painting as something that he can’t wait to replace.
“Picasso at the Lapin Agile” revels in these kinds of conversations, which find the scientist and the artist comically at odds over the beauty of their respective work. At one point, they duel with pencils on cocktail napkins, Picasso producing a sketch, Einstein a theorem.
As Picasso, Yocum is all outsized masculine ego. As Einstein, Sloan holds his own, rumpling his hair for the barkeep and the audience so that he looks more like those familiar photos. He quietly controls the room when he needs to and even dances with Suzanne (Allison Megroet), one of the Picasso’s more recent romantic conquests.
Some of the supporting roles are hit and miss. Dennis Kleinsmith plays Gaston, a self-described “newly old man” and Lapin Agile regular, as more lugubrious than likable. Melissa Beckwith is serviceable as the server Germaine.
If Garrett Michael Harris oversells his role as the fictional, kilt-wearing Charles Dabernow Schmendiman, it’s by design, as the inventor wrongly believes that he's the third side of a triangle of greatness that includes Einstein and Picasso.
Late in the play, John DeMerell arrives as a character billed only as “A Visitor.” He may not look much like a certain hip-shaking rock 'n' roll icon in blue suede shoes, but that’s part of the joke.
Directed by Topher Payne and played without intermission, “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” never lets you forget that you’re in a theater. One scene finds barkeep Freddy asking an audience member for a peek at her script to make sure the cast is entering in the proper order of appearance. Then there's the moment when ladies man Picasso tells Suzanne he will meet her later. When she ask how much later, he answers, “After the play ends, of course.”
For me, the best part of the production was the theater itself, a charming Downriver addition to the kinds of professional black-box theaters that have been popping up around metro Detroit. If you haven't yet seen a play at Open Book, “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” makes a fine introduction to the theater and its company, which is nearing the end of its third season. The show has all of the profound absurdity of a Samuel Beckett play, but it's delivered in a way that's much easier to digest.
Contact John Monaghan: madjohn@earthlink.net
'Picasso at the Lapin Agile'
Three stars
out of four stars
8 p.m. Fri.-Sat. (Sunday matinee is sold out.) Also 8 p.m. March 23-25.
Open Book Theatre
1621 West Road, Trenton
734-288-7753
$20; $15 students, seniors