Picasso at the Lapin Agile

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.