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Three & One-Half Stars Out of Five
Recommended by Michael Vaughan
An Independent, Unpaid & Unsolicited
Review
Picasso at the Lapin Agile
An Entertaining Slapstick Comedy Skit
At Toronto's
Bluma Appel Theatre until November 24th
416-368-3110
Michael Vaughan in Toronto
October 27, 2001
It’s the first Friday night and the audience is thirsting for Steve Martin’s Picasso
at the Lapin Agile. Quite
honestly, so am I. And who
wouldn’t, after reading the Richard
Ouzounian five star Toronto Star review (see below)
stating that this show “has to
rank as one of the best and brightest productions to grace a Toronto stage
in a long time.”
Undoubtedly,
the stage set looks great - a
1904 Parisian bar called Lapin Agile.
And the pace is fine without a chance of getting bored.
There is also extreme silliness and a definitive pointlessness to
it all. It’s very
entertaining, but hardly mentally engrossing.
Ouzounian
extols the “intellectual agility and philosophical resonance of what
lies underneath.” In fact, like most farces, this is pretty thin stuff
without much (any?) plot. One
has to keep in mind that Ouzounian is the same guy who gave four stars to Puppetry of the Penis (which is in actuality no more than an unusual
walk-on burlesque skit), and yet only one star to the much more
entertaining Drowsy Chaperone!
Kate
Taylor, on the
other hand gives it only one and one-half stars.
She goes on to say it’s nothing more than “self-satisfied
and pseudo-intellectual drivel” and that “Martin might walk in Tom Stoppard's footsteps, but he lacks the wit
and the intelligence to do it. The result is a script that looks
shamelessly exploitative, daring to borrow famous names when it has
nothing original to say about them.”
I
am sort of caught in between, liking the comedic parts, although slightly
alienated by the excess of the final coming of Elvis.
Not all the characterizations work.
The best by far is Alon Nashman who is terrific as Albert Einstein
– just looking at him makes you laugh.
Unfortunately, the sexpot, egomaniac Picasso just doesn’t quite
hit the mark, while Elvis is just absurd.
The ever -scheming Schmendiman is obviously a Saturday Night Live leftover with Martin Short in mind.
All in all, this one act farce constitutes a safe and entertaining night out.
timeouttoronto.com
details
Opens:
Thursday, October
25, 2001at 8pm
Closes:
Saturday November
24, 2001
Schedule:
Location:
Bluma Appel Theatre, St.
Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East, Toronto, Ontario
Price:
$20 to $69
Box
Office:
Tickets are available in person at CanStage Box Offices, 26 Berkeley
Street or St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East. By
telephone at 416-368-3110, or by calling TicketMaster at 416-872-1111.
Rush
Seats:
Available for any
performance beginning one hour prior to show time. Rush seats are 1/2 off
the regular ticket price.
For
Monday night performances only, pay-what-you-can tickets are available in
person at the
Make 'em laugh Make
'em
think
Richard Ouzounian
TORONTO STAR THEATRE CRITIC
October 26,
2001
"You
take a couple of geniuses, put them together and wow!"
When
Eric Peterson speaks that line in Picasso At The Lapin Agile, which
opened
last night at the Bluma Appel Theatre, he's describing Einstein and
Picasso, but he could just as easily have been talking about author Steve
Martin and director Randall Arney.
Thanks
to these two mega-gifted men, a brilliant cast and a superlative design
team, this show has to rank as one of the best and brightest productions
to grace a Toronto stage in a long time.
From
Martin - the original "wild and crazy guy"- you would expect a
comic conceit as off-the-wall as the imaginary meeting of the young
Picasso and Einstein in a 1904 Parisian bistro (the "Lapin
Agile" of the title). What you may not expect, unless you're a true
fan of his writing, is the intellectual agility and philosophical
resonance of what lies underneath.
Make
no mistake: this is a deliciously witty romp that fills Scott Bradley's
cunningly designed set to bursting. From the minute Peterson scowls into
view as the prostate-challenged Gaston, looking like a superannuated
Gallic Groucho Marx, slamming in and out of the toilet as though it were a
bedroom in a Feydeau farce, you know you're in for a good time.
Equally
delightful are the blessedly bourgeois owners of the bistro, Geoffrey
Bowes and Michelle Fisk. He is all genial affability, she favours sardonic
feminine wisdom. When one character complains about a partner's premature
ejaculation, the strawberry-blonde Fisk sighs "Is there any other
kind?" with a lifetime of ennui behind the line.
But
the play's heart is the meeting of minds between Einstein and Picasso: the
scientist vs. the artist, the ego vs. the id. You expect Picasso to burn
with passion, and although Jordan Pettle smoulders rather than actually
bursts into flames, he does a fine job. He's especially good at the play's
conclusion, when he's granted a vision of what his art will be in the
future and responds with a pleasing mixture of pride and humility.
However,
the delicious surprise of the evening is the show-stopping, star-making
turn of Alon Nashman as Albert Einstein. Tipsy with the power of his own
intellect, flapping his arms like Big Bird gone academic, Nashman is joy
incarnate. He takes every cliché of the absent-minded scientist and makes
it seem newly minted, adding a beguiling innocence and an irresistible
sense of fun. This is a performance so good that when Nashman briefly
leaves the stage, you feel an actual sense of loss.
But
there's a whole gallery of appealing zanies on display - from the
glad-handing art dealer of William Webster through the series of
love-seeking ladies offered by Cara Pifko through the mysterious final
visitor (no names please ... thank you, thank you very much) given flashy
life by Blaine Bray.
Another
standout is Ron Kennell's unabashedly tacky turn as Schmendiman, the
grotesquely eager would-be successful businessman. Martin's portrait of
the man of commerce is woefully unforgiving, and Kennell leaps in head
first, not afraid to offer us the silly side of capitalism.
Patricia
Zipprodt has costumed this comedy of manners with a fine eye for the
carefully selected exaggeration and Kevin Lamotte's lighting is sublime -
taking us into a final fantasy world of great beauty.
In
front of it all, Randall Arney has staged with consummate skill, juggling
this crazy troupe of clowns effortlessly. He also has mastered the art of
presenting them to us in beautiful pictures with maximum effect.
But
in the end, it is truly Steve Martin's evening and it's only right that he
was there last night to earn a thunderous reaction from the audience when
he took to the stage. (You've heard of a standing ovation? This was a
jumping-up-and-down ovation.)
Picasso
At The Lapin Agile is not only incredibly funny, it's amazingly wise and
unexpectedly touching. As the characters toast the dawning twentieth
century with hope, one wishes that we could do the same. Perhaps the
answer lies in the play's final call to action: "Dream the impossible
and put it into effect."
1and
a one-half stars out of 5
So a cubist walks into
a bar
By KATE TAYLOR
GLOBE & MAIL THEATRE CRITIC
Saturday, October 27, 2001
Toward
the end of Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the play's charming
old codger character declares "I learned something here tonight . . .
You take a couple of geniuses, put them in a room together and wow!"
If
only the rest of us were so quickly enlightened and easily impressed. This
1995 script proved a huge hit for the American comedian better known for
his work in film, but as it makes its very belated Toronto premiere at
Canadian Stage, it proves to be nothing more than self-satisfied and
pseudo-intellectual drivel. In imagining the conversation between two
historic greats (Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein) and placing them in a
theatrical world that jokingly undercuts its own illusionism, Martin might
walk in Tom Stoppard's footsteps, but he lacks the wit and the
intelligence to do it. The result is a script that looks shamelessly
exploitative, daring to borrow famous names when it has nothing original
to say about them.
The
action takes place in 1904 in a Parisian bar, the Lapin Agile, except that
all the characters speak as though they were sitting in an American bar
last week. "Anyone else want a refill?" asks the barmaid
Germaine (Michelle Fisk), who runs this establishment with her husband
Freddy (Geoffrey Bowes). When Einstein (Alon Nashman) enters, Freddy
proves to him he's arrived too soon by borrowing a program from the front
rows of the audience and showing him he's supposed to be fourth in order
of appearance. The play is peppered with these casual anachronisms and
conscious ruptures of the fourth wall, all of them too self-conscious to
be as funny as Martin seems to think they are.
The
intellectual heart of the play is supposedly the encounter between
Einstein and Picasso (Jordan Pettle), two young men both intent on
changing the future -- and on revealing their more human cares by seducing
the pretty Suzanne (a bland Cara Pifko). They tell us a bit about
relativity, a little bit more about art, light a few sparks off each
other, make a few pronouncements about the nature of genius and then
Martin, who repeatedly mistakes wacky for witty, brings in Elvis as a deus
ex machina.
The
one thing that can be said for all this is that it's lively, as directed
here by Randall Arney, the original director of the American premiere
brought to Toronto for the occasion. (Apparently no local director can be
counted on to truly grasp Martin's comic genius.) Arney does at least keep
the cast ticking along fast enough to occasionally cover for the lack of
content. Eric Peterson is amusing as Gaston (that old codger) while Pettle
and Nashman win you over with their funny reproductions of the lusty,
egomaniacal Picasso and the eccentric, self-absorbed Einstein. But why
exactly the father of relativity and the master of cubism have been
conjured is never revealed.
Copyright Michael Vaughan 2001
Toronto, Ontario
mbv@total.net