by Steve Martin
Talisman Theatre Company, February 2005
Director: John O’Loughlin
Steve Martin’s surreal comedy, in which Picasso and Einstein
meet as young men in a Paris bar in 1904, divided audiences: they
either loved it or hated it. The play’s musings on art, science
and the nature of genius intertwined with a non-stop barrage of
comic one-liners weren’t to the taste of some who felt
they just didn’t "get it". The play is really about the
excitement of being on the verge of something: Picasso is about to
leave his blue period behind and discover cubism, Einstein will
shortly publish the Special Theory of Relativity and all the
characters sense that the twentieth century is going to provide them
with experiences and opportunities that were never before possible.
Left to right are Freddy the barman (me), Suzanne (Donna Griffin),
Germaine (Vicki Hollings) and Einstein (Ross Woodward).
Germaine, Freddy and Einstein share a joke.
Einstein and Freddy are bemused as Germaine foresees the career of
Marcel Marceau.