Today and tonight signify Friday, July 10.
SEQUIM — The young woman hands Albert Einstein a piece of paper: a drawing Pablo Picasso scratched out fast.
Beholding it, Einstein marvels.
“I never thought the 20th century would be handed to me so casually,” he says.
“I’m lucky tonight; I was open to receive it.”
On this night, Einstein and Picasso are about to meet at the Lapin Agile (the Nimble Rabbit), a cafe in Paris’ Montmartre neighborhood. It’s 1904, and the pair, in their 20s, will soon rock the world with art, science and creative genius.
We get to spend a little time in their company in “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” the play opening tonight for a three-week run at Olympic Theatre Arts.
The piece has quite a pedigree, in its provenance and its incarnation here. Actor and comedian Steve Martin wrote and debuted it in his Beverly Hills, Calif., home in 1993; it later played at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and on many other stages from New York City to San Francisco.
In Sequim, the cast of this community-theater production is “stunning,” said “Picasso” director Anna Andersen.
Together at the cafe, they talk about where inspiration comes from, the nature of genius and gender politics, over coffee, absinthe and wine.
They are Sean Peck-Collier as Picasso, Ron Graham as Freddy the bartender, Pat Owens as Sagot the art dealer, Angela Poynter-Lemaster as barmaid Germaine and Jim Guthrie as the old Frenchman Gaston.
Mindy Gelder and understudy Jenny Sies share the role of Suzanne, Picasso’s love interest, Mike Roggenbuck is the young inventor Charles Dabernow Schmendiman, Kaylee Ditlefsen is the Countess and Danny Willis, a recent Sequim High School graduate, appears as a time-traveler called only “the Singer.”
Miles Carignan is a starry-eyed Einstein.
And “it’s fun to be him,” said the actor, “because he’s extremely passionate about everything.”
Picasso, of course, is no slouch in the passion department, be it for art or for women.
We get an eyeful of that at the Lapin Agile. This is Paris, after all, beamed onto Olympic Theatre Arts’ main stage with Nancy Weikel’s luscious costuming, Carol and David Willis’ set design and Andersen’s slightly racy script interpretation.
The show has a playful wit about it, says Carignan. He considers “Picasso” appropriate for audience members of high school-age and older. A mix of history and invention, Martin’s creation brings together two giants of art and physics.
“To see that is kind of a cool thing,” Carignan says, adding that Andersen is likewise deft in assembling this cast.
And while “Picasso” is set near the turn of the 20th century, it’s rife with topics for discussion right now, adds Poynter-Lemaster.
As Germaine, the wisecracking, sharp-eyed girlfriend to Freddy, she has a particular genius of her own.
“Sean and I have a really good scene that starts off the second act,” Poynter-Lemaster says, “where you get to see who Germaine really is. She gives Picasso a schooling about himself and his use and abuse of women.”
The Lapin Agile is a place where men and women talk about ideas, sex, the future — and a few times, they come to the lip of the stage to reach toward the audience, drawing them forward.
“I love the show. I think it’s very creative and different. I like the avant-garde quality,” says Poynter-Lemaster, and the breaking of the fourth wall.”
Andersen, she adds, “is a fabulous director; very insightful” in her treatment of Martin’s play. And while Martin’s “Saturday Night Live!” comedy and movies such as “The Jerk” and “Father of the Bride” made him famous, Poynter-Lemaster says “Picasso” shows he’s a far deeper well.
And as Germaine might say, the guys in this story aren’t the only ones making waves.
“These men, for all their ‘genius,’” adds Poynter-Lemaster, have “a woman who’s their inspiration, standing behind them.”
