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Title: Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays : Picasso at the LapinAgile, the Zig-Zag Woman, Patter for a Floating Lady, WASP by Steve Martin ISBN: 0-8021-3523-4 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: October, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (28 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: 1 good, 1 OK, and 2 Ugly
Comment: Picasso at the Lapin Agile is a wonderful play, with a great deal of tongue-in-cheek humor, dry wit, and intelligent riddles. In this play, Martin has set out a very amusing treatise on some very important aspects of the 20th century, especially regarding art and science.
There are, however, three other plays in this collection. Two of them, Zig-Zag Woman and Patter for a Floating Lady, can hardly be called plays. They're not even one-acts. They have the appearance of just being filler that Martin wrote to pass the time. Wasp, the fourth play in the collection, has many high points, including an hilarious monologue the father delivers to the son. It contains enough dark humor and sarcasm to make it a good read.
Picasso at the Lapin Agile alone is worth buying this collection, but don't expect the other plays to live up to Picasso's status. It is, though, a good collection for anyone interested in this type of humor or drama.
Rating: 5
Summary: An extremely funny take on serious stuff
Comment: Steve Martin has always been a "serious" writer, in that he is interested in using humor to make people think and to highlight ideas in new ways. "Picasso at the LapinAgile" is a delightful piece of theatrical slight of hand wherein he creates the meeting of the century that never happened between the most influential scientest and the most influential artist and, after a wonderful setup, does a quantum leap into the absurd. It's fun to read and on stage (I saw the production at Ford's Theater in D.C.) it is fantastic.
Recently on a trip to Paris I climed Montmarte Butte to find the site of the Lapin Agile, the bistro in which Martin's play is set. It is still there and still in business, but alas, never saw nor will see a coming together of intelligence, talent and ego such as that envisioned by Steve Martin in this play.This is very smart comedy but funny enough in other ways to work for most audiences. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 4
Summary: Surreal and funny
Comment: Yes, it's that Steve Martin -- the wacky guy from "Naked Gun." The actor comedian pens some remarkably witty and imaginative stagework in "Picasso at the Lapin Agile And Other Plays." Two of the four plays are way too brief, but the longer works sparkle with wit and weirdness.
"Picasso At The Lapin Agile" brings two geniuses to the Lapin Agile: Picasso and Einstein, both young men in 1904. A clever round of discussion starts from there, with the two great men examining science and the culture around them. There are two one-act plays; the first is "Zig-Zag Woman," which is about an emotionally desperate women whose body is in three pieces and her conversations with three men.
The second one-act is "Patter For the Floating Lady," a surreal bit about a magician levitating his former love. "WASP" is perhaps the most biting, hilarious play of this collection -- a dark satire of the white-bread middle-classes of the 1950s. Martin expertly lampoons the religious, social, and cultural conventions of the WASPs of the time, with a father who doesn't know best, a pair of troublemaking kids, and a homemaker mom who talks with the voices in her head.
Martin's plays are both cynical and silly (he identifies a luxury item as "a thing you have that annoys other people that you have it"), with plenty of humor both dark and light. The two shorter works are the weakest. While "Patter" has some sweet, sad moments, these are too brief and unformed to make as much of an impression.
But "Picasso" and "WASP" are gems. The first is philosophical pondering, lightened with plenty of humor and an Elvis cameo. The second is dark absurdist satire that is more openly goofy. Don't think that just because Martin is a comedian that these are fluff -- he develops his characters with an expert hand. Yes, even the really silly ones (like the WASP Dad).
"Picasso At The Lapin Agile And Other Plays" is a solid collection of plays, more complex and deep than they sound. Intelligent and whimsical, this is the world through Martin's twisted brain.
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Title: The Pleasure of My Company: A Novel by Steve Martin ISBN: 0786869216 Publisher: Hyperion Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Underpants : A Play by Carl Sternheim by Steve Martin ISBN: 0786888245 Publisher: Hyperion Pub. Date: 20 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Pure Drivel by Steve Martin ISBN: 078688505X Publisher: Hyperion Pub. Date: 06 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Shopgirl by Steve Martin ISBN: 0786885688 Publisher: Theia Pub. Date: 05 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin ISBN: 0399123040 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: June, 1979 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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