Eugene Weekly : Books : 08.17.06

Order Out of Chaos?

In the Very Little Theatre, seeds of genius germinate.

BY SUZI STEFFEN

Quick: What year did Albert Einstein publish four papers, one of which won him a Nobel Prize? Okay, how about this: When did Picasso paint the seminal Les Demoiselles D'Avignon?

Albert Einstein (Ben Newman) shocks Picasso (Parsa Naderi) and others in the Lapin Agile.

If you're Steve Martin, you know the answers are 1905 and 1907. But what happened in 1904, before the ideas came to fruition? The ferment of ideas in turn-of-the-century Europe forms the backdrop of Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a massively popular play currently running at the Very Little Theatre (VLT).

Act I opens under a lovely Art Nouveau proscenium that sets the scene: the Lapin Agile, a bar in Paris. Director Michael Watkins has the barkeeper, Freddy (Michael Walker) play an early role that doesn't last: the drunken fool, hungover and hurrying to get his café ready for the night's customers. While Walker performs that task well, his talents are better used in the hard-working, genial barkeep persona that soon comes to the fore. Various characters assemble, including a fine William Campbell as crotchety old Gaston, the forceful, sexy Cate Wolfenbarger as smart and lusty Suzanne and the intensely competent Sharon Sless as Germaine, business and life partner to Freddy.

Ben Newman plays the young Einstein, and he wins over the audience with his antics and quirkiness. Newman grows more impressive over the varied terrain of the play until his is the performance to remember. As Martin writes Picasso (Parsa Naderi), he should be a magnetic, arrogant because he's brilliant, sexually powerful force of nature. Naderi is pretty enough, but he doesn't have the acting chops for this role, a problem especially apparent in his intimate scene with Sless.

A recurring joke involves a man named Schmendiman (Matt Keating), who believes his glory and brilliance will outshine anyone during the course of the 20th century. Einstein and Picasso also believe they will change the world. What is the outcome of such belief, such certainty? The audience knows, and if Keating played Schmendiman a bit less broadly, the poignance of his role could come forward.

Many kudos, of course, to the strengths of Martin's script. The humorous asides, knowing meta-statements about the history of the 20th century (both hilarious and deeply tragic) and breaks in the fourth wall help the play achieve a level of engagement and resonance. If the ending with its Visitor (Johnny Ormsbee, who looks a bit too young and slim for this particular role) and its general goofiness gets a bit off track, that doesn't entirely detract from the rest of the play's witty commentary. The undercurrent always stays, of what was then to come, what now has occurred — and what the audience can't know, barely into our new century: What will become of us?

Picasso at the Lapin Agile runs Aug. 17-20, 25 and 26. Log on to www.thevlt.com for more info or call 344-7751.