An unlikely playwright crafts an unlikely meeting

Steve Martin does not immediately spring to mind when you think of popular playwrights.

His various comic roles on television (e.g. "Saturday Night Live") and on film (e.g. "Bowfinger," "Father of the Bride," "L.A. Story" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles") tend to define his fame.

Yet this UCLA graduate has also written several short pieces for the New Yorker and several award-winning plays such as "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," winner of 1996 New York Outer Critics' Circle Awards for "Best Play" and "Best Playwright."

Set in 1904 in the Lapin Agile — a bohemian Paris bistro — Steve Martin's play centers on an imaginary meeting between a passionate Pablo Picasso and a fiery Albert Einstein.

The two young men, on the threshold of fame, compete for the attentions of a young lady and for each other's respect in an hilarious battle of ideas about painting, probability, lust and the future of the world.

One year later, Albert Einstein published the Special Theory of Relativity. Three years later, Pablo Picasso painted Les Demoiselles D'Avignon.

This delightful play bounces back and forth between serious insights and wacky comedy on the stage of Theatre~Intime under the direction of Micah Baskir '03.

"Picasso at the Lapin Agile" will play for two weekends, starring Ben Beckley '02 as Picasso and Jeff Kitrosser '03 as Einstein. Past productions of this whimsically comedic play have tended to emphasize Einstein as a force to reveal Picasso's genius.

Baskir pushes this one step further and uses Martin's fantastical approach to the story to make the show "officially" Einstein's. So Martin's comedy about the appreciation of beauty becomes a fantasy based on the dreams and philosophies Einstein expressed as an older man.

Baskir's goal has been to combine a loose framework with a coherent and exciting show that will address everything his actors want to show the audience.

While attempting to delve into the lives of the geniuses in Martin's play, Baskir has been working to unearth the flashes of genius in all the members of his production, who also include Paola Allais '01, Marnie Podos '03 and Mike Ritter '03.

While our administrators continue to look for a viable alternative to the 'Street,' why not try a stylin' bohemian Parisian bistro where you can catch a glimpse of the stars?

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"Picasso at the Lapin Agile" will be performed March 1-3, and March 8-11 at 8 p.m., and March 11 at 2p.m. For reservations, call Theatre Intime 258-4750.