'Guernica' Meet Relativity

Micah Baskir '03's production of Steve Martin's "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" is an extremely agile and nimble production that had the audience at Theatre~Intime in stitches for almost the full 90 minutes.

The audience finds itself inside a lively, bohemian Paris bistro in 1904 at a chance meeting between a flamboyant Pablo Picasso and an earnest Albert Einstein.

"Picasso at the Lapin Agile" — winner of 1996 New York Outer Critics' Circle Awards for "Best Play" and "Best Playwright." — presents a glimpse into the lives of these rising stars before their defining works made them famous.

One year later, Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity and three years later Picasso painted "Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon."

Jeffrey Kitrosser '03 plays a convincing Einstein whose impassioned discussion of the beauty of formulas and the theory of relativity actually made this reviewer jealous of physics majors.

Bearing a convincing physical resemblance to Einstein, Kitrosser first comes onto stage with slicked hair. When the bistro owner Freddy (John McMath '03) doesn't recognize Einstein, Kitrosser gets a quick laugh when he replies "Sorry, I'm not myself today," ruffles his hair and we have the crazy-haired Einstein whose image is so familiar.

Benjamin Beckley '02 prances onto stage as Picasso and his exuberance about painting and womanizing immediately captivates the audience.

He gesticulates wildly and can't stop moving as he discusses his art — we get the impression that his arms automatically start painting in the air as inspiration strikes. As he waves his pencil, his words enthrall the audience.

According to Picasso, painting merely consists of poking a pencil into the future, sucking up the ideas and transferring them onto paper.

Einstein and Picasso compete for the attention of the 19-year-old Suzanne, played by Rebecca Zack '04, who comes to the bistro in search of Picasso.

Suzanne knows she can mesmerize the men around her and their eyes are fixed to her like a magnet when she speaks and moves across the stage.

While we expect Einstein and Picasso to be lively, the rest of the cast's performances are equally exciting. Gaston, an older man in the bistro (Scott Eckert '03), continually has the audience shrieking. In between over a dozen trips to the bistro bathroom, Gaston repeatedly pipes up with comic asides.

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In one scene where Picasso pursues Suzanne, Eckert belts out a painfully croaky rendition of "When a Man Loves a Woman."

Paola Allais '01's strong performance as Germaine, a waitress and girlfriend of the bistro owner, also attracted attention. A subdued counterpart to Gaston, Allais quizzes Einstein and Picasso from the audience's perspective.

Other comic performances from Picasso's art dealer , Freddy (Robert Accordino '03) and a visitor from the future (Michael Ritter '03) further spice up Baskir's production.

Schmendiman, played by John Vennema '04, may only be on stage for a couple of scenes but when he does appear, he comes in with a bang.

A wannabe genius, he literally leaps onto stage and is every bit as enthusiastic as Einstein and Picasso as he describes his innovative idea for an inflexible, brittle building material made up of equal parts of asbestos, kitten paws, and radium. His character pokes fun at the nature of Martin's retrospective attempt to create a staged meeting between geniuses who worked in the same time period.

One of few puzzling aspects about the production are the characters' accents. Apart from Picasso and Einstein, the rest of the characters are presumably Parisian locals.

Yet while Gaston's thick French accent is hilarious, Suzanne inexplicably doesn't have one. Overall, though, the inconsistent accents didn't jar, and poorly contrived accents would have been worse.

Baskir's production of "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" is great comic bang for your buck because of Martin's experience playing various comic roles on television (for example, "Saturday Night Live") and on film (for example, "Bowfinger," "Father of the Bride," "L.A. Story" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles").

Stop by the Lapin Agile as the play runs for its final week with showings March 8-10 at 8 p.m. and March 10 at 2 p.m..

For reservations, call Theatre~Intime at 258-4950 or visit www.princeton.edu/~intime. Tickets are $5 for students, $8 for faculty and seniors and $10 for general admission.