With today's worldwide tumultuous state of affairs, it seems that we could all use a good laugh. And the Cloverdale Playhouse delivers in spades as they open their COVID-cautious 11th Season with actor-comedian Steve Martin's outrageous Picasso at the Lapin Agile, its first appearance in the River Region since its debut in 1993.
Sam Wootten's stellar debut directing project since taking the helm as the Playhouse's Artistic Director is a fast moving, inventive 80-minute romp that taps into the improbable premise, the witty dialogue, and the headier themes of Martin's script.
He is abetted by a collaborative design team -- J. Scott Grinstead/Set, Rebecca Huguet/Costume, Mike Winkelman/Lighting, Clyde Hancock/Sound -- whose combined efforts create a remarkable mise-en-scene for the actors to inhabit.
It's 1904 in Paris -- a fin de siecle moment almost at the end of "La Belle Epoque" -- set in a bohemian cafe called the Lapin Agile, where Martin imagines a meeting between Albert Einstein [Kevin Mohajerin] and Pablo Picasso [Kendrick Golson] when both geniuses were in their 20s and were on the brink of making/changing history with the "theory of relativity" and the tradition-breaking "cubist school of art". Their questioning of what the future holds, and their debate on whether science or art is the most important contributor to mankind's progress, ignites in Messers Mohajerin and Golson their characters' youthfully passionate defenses of their respective fields, yet they ultimately realize that they can live in harmony and align their ideas as a new way of looking at the world.
But, in comes larger-than-life "inventor" and self-proclaimed "genius" Schmendiman [John Selden] to steal their thunder as a third person needed to save the world through commercial enterprise as well as science and art; and in an antic display reminiscent of Martin's "wild and crazy guy" routine and John Cleese's various Monty Python personae, Mr. Selden's too-short stage time ups the ante of comic possibilities.
A talented acting ensemble of Playhouse veterans and neophytes portray a host of other eccentrics whose lives intertwine at the cafe, and who keep the comic dimensions on track: Freddy [Bo Jinright] who runs the cafe with his girlfriend Germaine [Katie Schmidt] who has had a relationship with Picasso; Gaston [George Jacobsen] who suffers from prostate problems but has a straightforward attitude to both art and science; Suzanne [Valorie Roberts] who has recently had an affair with Picasso and comes to the cafe to meet him; effete art dealer Sagot [Chris Roquemore] who claims that the only paintings people won't buy depict Jesus or sheep; the Countess [Annie Gunter] who is there to meet up with Einstein; and Schmendiman's Female Admirer [ Dominique Taylor] with a slight case of mistaken identity.
There's something else up Martin's sleeve when he introduces a hip-swiveling, blue-suede-shoes-wearing, time-traveling Visitor [Gage Leifried] to tell them what the future has in store. Kind of a let-down from the charming witty contrivances of the early Twentieth Century fiction we have come to enjoy.
Whether people prefer to see themselves as forward looking ["Neo-"] or reflective looking ["Post-"] change-makers, there is no doubt that this current smart and silly production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile will make its appeal their own. And that's a comforting thought.
