Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Theatre review)

 Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Steve Martin) Presented by Guelph Little Theatre at Theatre Ontario Festival 2012 in Sault Ste Marie. [D: Gerry Butts. Carlo Adamo, Rob Gray et al]
     A well done production of a funny and wise play. Martin imagines Picasso and Einstein meeting at Le Lapin Agile in 1904. The result is revelation of the regulars’ characters and relationships, and Picasso’s and Einstein’s thoughts about themselves and their work. In other words, there’s talk, a lot of it, all good, all interesting, and delivered as if the character had just thought of it, even when it was clearly a well-worn theme, often articulated before. Talk about art, science, creativity, beauty, love, lust, life, the universe, and everything. There’s no plot, really, just overheard conversations. These do develop several themes, one of which is our inability to know our place in history. It’s a play I want to read.
     I thoroughly enjoyed the performances. We saw an ensemble at work, with every character developed as fully as the script permitted. A character’s lines live in the context of the whole script, a good script gives clues to the back story of every character. Using these clues a good director and actor will delight us with the illusion of a fully rounded character in a half a dozen lines.
     Thinking back on the play, I recall the pleasure of watching it, but none of the lines. Odd, that. How can a play that makes such a strong impression leave so few traces in the memory? The ideas, however, do stick, perhaps because I agree with them and their implications: That art and science are the supreme creations of the human spirit. That creating a new idea or a new picture is a glimpse of truth, perhaps the only glimpses we are capable of. That to recognise the truth of a picture or idea is to participate in its creation. Sidebar: “idea” come from a root that means to “see”: an idea is an image. ***