Steve Martin’s “Picasso At The Lapin Agile” Opens December 13 At Red Barn

Anyone who’s worked in comedy for very long understands that the best comedy comes in two steps. First, there’s the set-up, then comes the payoff. Without the former, the latter often falls a little flat, if it lands at all.

Steve Martin understands comedy. In fact, he is one of our revered masters at it – his dozens of awards range through Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys, Tonys, Grammys, People’s Choice, New York Critic’s Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics, American Comedy, Writer’s Guild, US Comedy Arts, Hasty Pudding, and the topper of them all, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He knows his stuff.

So when Martin sat down to try his master’s hand at a stage play, he went with what he knows best: a marvelous set-up followed by an hilarious payoff. Actually, an almost never-ending series of payoffs. Why settle for one laugh when you can get ‘em all, right?

The result was “Picasso At The Lapin Agile”, winner of the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play, and not only a very funny play, but an intelligent one. Because while Martin may be very funny, he’s also no slouch when it comes to thoughtful, intelligent, or intriguing.

“Picasso” will have its Key West debut at the Red Barn Theatre in Key West in a five week run beginning Tuesday, December 13. The play stars a blend of local favorites and talented newcomers, including Mark Crow, Eric Braojos, Pony Charvet, Wayne Dapser, Erin McKenna, Lisa Elena Monda, Mook J, Bob Smith, and Garrett Stuart. It will be directed by Joy Hawkins. All curtains are at 8 pm.

So what’s Martin’s comedic set-up in “Picasso”? On a night in 1904 in Paris, Albert Einstein, then 25 years old and just months away from formulating his seminal “Special Theory of Relativity,” wanders into the Lapin Agile (Nimble Rabbit), a real Paris watering hole that catered to painters, writers, and other eccentrics who were giving direction to the new century’s avant-garde. And who should he run into? None other than the 23-year-old Pablo Picasso, himself not far from foisting his own seminal brilliance onto the world with his painting, “Les Demoiselles D’Avignon.”

As if that’s not enough, Martin paints the scene with a delicious soup of eccentric supporting characters: the dry owner of the establishment, the bar’s waitress (and the owner’s mistress), a beautiful woman who has come to meet Picasso, an elderly neighborhood philosopher with prostate problems, Picasso’s hustling agent (who has very odd ideas about art), and an inventor with huge ideas and little talent or knowledge. There’s even a “mysterious stranger” who you will no doubt recognize.

And then comes the payoff: Martin turns them all loose. While the two main characters vie for the attentions of the beautiful woman and for each other’s respect as shapers of the new world, and the rest of the characters toss in their own funny, whimsical, farcical, absurd, goofy (pick one or all) world views, a huge battle of ideas about art, science, lust, and the future of the world erupts, with laughs ranging from the whimsical giggle to the gut-busting guffaw.

“Picasso at the Lapin Agile” is one of those rare plays that entertains on many levels at once, fueled by a master’s understanding of comedy mixed with a philosopher’s intelligent musings about the nature of society and the world. Martin proves that comedy doesn’t have to be low-brow to bring the big laughs nor high-brow to be relevant.

For tickets or more information, visit redbarntheatre.com or call the box office at 305-296-9911. Ticket holders for Opening Night on Tuesday, December 13th will be invited to join the cast and crew at the catered after-party in the Zabar Courtyard at the Red Barn.

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