This 'Picasso' inspires with ideas
By MARTY CLEAR, Times Correspondent
Published January 27, 2008
TAMPA - Even though A Picasso is a short play, about an hour and a quarter, it's densely packed with intriguing ideas.
For a lot of theatergoers, that's more than enough to recommend it. And the Sunday matinee crowd that chose the excellent Stageworks production of Jeffrey Hatcher's play over an afternoon of playoff football gave it a deserved and heartfelt standing ovation.
Audiences that prefer plays driven by plot and emotional richness - the kind of stuff colloquially called "drama" - might not find it as enthralling. A Picasso is talky and intellectual, often dry and sometimes remarkably slow, given its compact length.
Director Anna Brennen and her two-person cast - Petrus Antonius as Picasso, Linda Slade as a Nazi functionary named Miss Fischer - offer a lot of help getting past the slow spots. Brennen makes good use of the generous stage at Gorilla Theatre with an appropriately cold set and dank lighting by Keith Arsenault, and Antonius and Slade deliver nicely textured performances.
Slade has perhaps the bigger challenge; her character is confined and defined by totalitarianism. But she manages an undercurrent of intensity that blossoms into restrained passion at the play's climax. Antonius, a longtime Stageworks regular, is nicely subdued as the famously flamboyant Picasso.
The setting is a vault beneath the streets of Nazi-occupied Paris. Picasso has been summoned there, apparently under quasiarrest, to meet with Fischer. She asks him to confirm that he was indeed the creator of three pieces of art that have been presented as Picassos.
It takes awhile before he finds out that Fischer has been ordered to destroy "degenerate" art, including at least one Picasso, and that's why she needs authentication. An intellectual joust ensues, replete with cerebrally satisfying discourse about art and politics, and a nice little undercurrent of seduction that gradually bubbles to the surface.
Hatcher, probably best known for writing the film Stage Beauty, doesn't offer a lot of suspense or surprise in A Picasso. It has some conflict, but we pretty much know from the start who will win the battle of wits. But the script and production have plenty of substance for people who care about art and theater.
Marty Clear is a Tampa freelance writer who specializes in performing arts. He can be reached at mclear@tampabay.rr.com.Review
A Picasso
The play runs through Feb. 3 at the Gorilla Theatre, 4419 N Hubert Ave., Tampa. 3 p.m. today, 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Feb 3. $15-$25. (813) 879-2914; www.gorilla-theatre.com.