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A Picasso
Reviewed by Paul Birchall
Promenade Playhouse
Through Oct. 4.
RECOMMENDED:
Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher’s drama artfully combines a threatening atmosphere with a charged debate on art and politics. And, if the conversation on the nature of art occasionally edges into the cerebral, the grounded performances and pleasantly nuanced arguments are enough to keep the work vivid and compelling.
In 1941 in Nazi-occupied Paris, the artist Picasso (Charles Fathy) has been summoned to a meeting with flinty Nazi bureaucrat, Miss Fischer (Natalia Lazarus), who demands that the artist authenticate three works of art confiscated from Nazi victims. Picasso loathes the Nazis but considers himself apolitical and he is quick to confirm that the paintings are his.
However, when Fischer reveals that the three paintings are going to be used in a Goebbels-curated exhibition of “degenerate art” and will then be tossed into a bonfire, Picasso is quick to recant his provenance and pleads desperately to save his paintings. A Sophie’s Choice-like spectacle gradually develops, as the Nazi offers to let him save two of the three pictures, as long as the third goes into the bonfire.
Hatcher’s drama is odd in that massive dramatic capital is spent arguing to save a trio of paintings at the same time that so many people are dying and so many countries are falling under the boots of the Storm Troopers. This is ultimately a play that has passion for objects more than people, and, even if we accept the notion that, to Picasso, these paintings are his children, there’s a certain cerebral aspect to the debate that makes it hard to sustain enthusiasm. With the Nazis all about, this guy is worrying primarily about his paintings?
The play’s boiled-down theme is that works of art are about far more than their mere physicality: What they symbolize and the philosophy that undercuts them are as potent as their image. At the same time, the play possesses a chilling subtext that artists are ultimately objects themselves to be manipulated by the state – and it is only the luckiest and most skillful artisans who are able pull out a wrinkle to defeat the higher powers; everyone else must be subjugated, even Picasso.
Directors Lazarus and Steven Ullman create a nicely simmering atmosphere, with Fathy’s pompous swagger nicely contrasting with Lazarus’s prim chilliness. It is notoriously difficult to portray genius believably — but Fathy does a good job of depicting the ego and tempestuous personality of the great artist in a portrayal that ranges from comic pomposity to genuinely sincere outrage over the destruction of his Picasso’s art. His character seems coolly alive: Unapologetic for his excesses, almost gloating about his powers and talent, ultimately selfish in his need to have it all.
Lazarus’s turn as Picasso’s Nazi interrogator is surprisingly engaging. Yes, Fischer plays a Nazi, but Lazarus also somehow manages to communicate a sense of humanity to a character who, strictly speaking, should be a bit of a moral write off. It’s true, Fincher mainly hews to Wikipedia-like facts when describing Picasso – but Lazarus’s character is actually a more complicated character. Lazarus plays her with tightly wound rigidity, but, as she unwinds, she reveals that she’s actually a closet Picasso fan and, indeed, is a little attracted to him, in spite of the loathsome position that she herself realizes she’s in. To be engaging and a Nazi is really a challenge – but Lazarus ultimately shines as a character who has agreed to make her deal with the devil in an effort to advance the purpose of art.
Promenade Playhouse, 1404 3rd Street Promenade, Santa Monica; Fri.- Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through October 4. https://eventbrite.com/e/a-picasso-a-powerful-political-drama-about-art-at-the-promenade-playouse-tickets-18125105679
