REVIEW: Picasso at the Lapin Agile, People's Theatre
What if Picasso had met Einstein?
I doubt I’m alone in having had Steve Martin pigeonholed as comedian and actor, the star of films such as Roxanne and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
But he has shone at all sorts of things, including with this, his first play, which had successful runs in America after its 1993 premiere.
For this rare staging we have director Kaila Moyers to thank. She has loved the play for years, she tells us in the programme, for its “wit and intelligence”.
That’s the least you’d expect of an encounter between Picasso and Einstein dreamt up by a smart cookie like Martin.
And credit to the People’s for venturing into a potential ’Allo ’Allo!-style linguistic minefield featuring a Spaniard and a German in a French café.
Any TV viewer of a certain age is going to see shades of René Artois in Freddy, the affable but mildly world-weary owner of the café known as the Lapin Agile (which is real and Picasso actually was a customer).
But fair play to Ian Willis (who has Poirot on his acting CV) and the rest of the cast who mostly keep their accents plausibly intact.
The action unfolds on a traverse stage with audience on either side and cabaret tables for some brave souls. Freddy polishes glasses at the bar at one end as the characters come and go.
First there’s Gaston (Jim Boylan), a regular, getting on in years and lamenting the weakening of libido and bladder.
Then in comes Albert Einstein, not the white-haired gent spoofed in the TV ads but his youthful self, brilliantly played by Peter Dawson who is every inch the future Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
Suzanne (Helen Doyle) flounces in seeking Picasso, fondly imagining that, as his latest conquest, she’s special. History tells us that’s not likely – unless her features become distorted into a Cubist masterpiece.
Picasso (Jamie Cordes) comes later, somewhat surly and self-possessed. Matisse gets short shrift along with the depiction of sheep on the café wall.
Soon come the fizzing exchanges between the giants from history as they find common ground in their notions of perfection, Picasso knocking off sketches on bits of paper and Einstein responding with an equation.
It mostly goes over the heads of their fellow drinkers, mere mortals including winsomely pragmatic barmaid Germaine (Rhiannon Wilson) and Picasso’s agent, Sagot (Matthew Shepherd), whose mind is attuned to money.
There’s not much of what you’d call a plot. So much of what happened is known and documented. It’s more an exploration of an idea, a theatrical parlour game blending fact and fiction.
Set at the start of the 20th Century, it projects ahead, “imagining the future and bringing it into effect”, as one character suggests.
But it’s fun – and being a Steve Martin creation, there’s bound to be a zany element.
Ever heard of Charles Dabernow Schmendiman? Almost certainly not. But there must be thousands like him whose cock-eyed schemes brought not greatness but oblivion.
And then there’s ‘A Visitor’ - but I’m sworn to secrecy on that point.
Picasso at the Lapin Agile runs until Saturday, March 7 in the People’s Theatre Studio. Tickets from the website.
And if you fancy the paintings on the walls of the stage café, they’re by real life North East artist Sarah Pavlov (but not the one of the sheep) and they’re for sale.
And to bolster the art theme, there’s a new exhibition in the bar of nicely done abstract paintings by Aleksandra Dogramadzi, born in Belgrade but now living in Whitley Bay, which is on until March 28.