Review: Classic Theater Guild delights with Steve Martin comedy ‘Picasso’

“Picasso at the Lapin Agile” is Steve Martin’s 1993 comedy that imagines a meeting between Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso in the Montmartre cabaret in the title a year before Einstein writes the special theory of relativity and two years before Picasso paints “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”

It is an intellectual vaudeville packed with funny lines about the primacy of art or science that hop nimbly from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Classic Theater Guild has stocked its cast with able players as well as Freddy the bartender has stocked his shelves with spirits — both the laughs and stage liquor flow nonstop for the play’s 80 intermissionless minutes. Playing Freddy — unbelievably in his first play — is the calm, cool Malachi Burnham, who softly drops his laugh lines like beverage napkins onto the bar. A pleasure to watch.
His girlfriend Germaine is played by Alexia Halsey, who also surprisingly has only been in the role a week, as a cast member had to drop out due to personal reasons. She is perfectly suited for the role of the pretty young thing with an independent spirit who catches the ever-wandering eye of Picasso.

These two characters have historical forebears.

Picasso is played with great flair and rich voice by J. Scala. He strikes a dashing figure onstage in a scarf, beret and white lounge shoes, but it is his voice that commands even more attention.

Einstein is played by Mike Reynolds, who is also no slouch vocally and has a fun time with the mad-scientist role. Also in the play is an old man with prostate issues at the bar, Gaston, played by Doug Gladstone, who squeezes out every pee joke available.

The community veteran John Quinan plays the worldly, cynical art dealer Sagot, who lately has a thing for Matisse.

Director Michael Silvia, who has kept things moving and not gotten in the way of the stream of punchlines, has been recruited into onstage service with the cast member’s departure, and gleefully plays crass capitalist Schmendiman, employing all his mangled pronunciations. CarolAnne Manzer serviceably plays a pair of women, one each for Picasso and Einstein, one disappointed and one smitten. And finally, Dalton Russell literally sparkles as a visitor from beyond, an emissary from the middle of the 20th century who will dwarf the fame of both the artist and the scientist.

The play is constantly tickling your ribs. There isn’t much intrigue into the tensions presented between art and science, but certainly topics such as the immutability of scientific fact or how political ideas will recede in the 20th century perk up our ears 30 years after the play was written. I could have used a greater conflict, and certainly the women need more to do. Physically, there were actions onstage like wiping a tablecloth with a bar rag or paying for drinks with mimed phantom money that pull you out of the crisp dialogue momentarily.

The set by Adam Coons has one eye-popping trick late in the play that can almost take your breath away with its effectiveness, and the lights at the Temple tried a similar effect but fell shy of achieving equal impact. It was a worthy effort, though.

In researching the play I came across the nugget in the premiere production of the play at Steppenwolf Theatre that Tracy Letts played the part of the bartender Freddy — thus CTG has kicked off the spring of Letts-related productions in the Capital Region before “The Minutes” at Albany Civic Theater and “August: Osage County” at Schenectady Civic Playhouse.

Silvia has done a fine job casting and staging the renowned comedian Martin’s early stage work, and the brilliant entertainer who is currently knocking them dead on the streaming service Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building” shows that he has been creating laughs for decades — across two centuries in fact.

“Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” is presented by Classic Theater Guild at Congregation Beth Israel (2195 Eastern Parkway) through this weekend.