Picasso At The Lapin Agile and The Most Massive Woman

Critiqued by Emma Gift

(Emma Gift, a Junior at Littleton High School, is its permanent theatre reviewer for Colorado Backstage. That is, until she graduates, which I would like to prolong, but don’t think I have a prayer of a chance. – Holly)

Picasso at the Lapin Agile at Littleton High School

This unique production put on by the Senior Theatre Company at Littleton consisted of two plays: The Most Massive Woman Wins by Madeleine George and Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin.

The Most Massive Woman Wins takes place in the waiting room of a liposuction clinic where four women of different ages, sizes and backgrounds anticipate getting liposuction in hopes that it will abolish their low self-esteem forever. Each of these women re-live their past experiences with their struggle to maintain a “perfect” image. This ranges from how being overweight affects their sex lives to how it affects their own daughters’ lives.

Picasso at the Lapin Agile is set in a bar called The Lapin Agile in the early 20th century where a group of people with vastly different backgrounds inadvertently meet. As they begin to get better acquainted, they start to feed off of each other’s idiosyncrasies in an unusual way to fuel their own genius. For example, this play features Albert Einstein who will soon after publish his special theory of relativity and Pablo Picasso who will later paint Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

The first performance of the evening was The Most Massive Woman Wins. The play started out in a very creative way with the four women simultaneously tapping their feet, crossing their legs and turning the pages of their magazines. To me, this represented the nervousness, yet the connection of the four women and how they were all feeling the same way. Lexi Warden showed more than sufficient commitment to her role as a supportive friend to one who has a thriving love life when really all she wants to do is love and be loved by someone. Warden was very consistent in her character and was very believable, yet could have had more of an impact on me as an audience member. Abby Bradbury was exceptionally accurate in her portrayal of a young woman who has always been looked down upon and taken advantage of by people such as her prom date and her mother. For me, Bradbury was the most believable as an actress and the one that created the closest bond with her audience.

Sam Scotti, one of two juniors in this production, intensely played a woman who had resorted to physical self-abuse to deal with her low self-esteem. As she went through her monologue about trying to burn herself to death, I actually started to cringe; the emotions she was conveying were uncomfortably real. It was almost as if I was there, doing it myself! My only criticism for her was that her choices as an actress sometimes were a little off the mark, during the flashback scenes.

Clare Rudman was also very believable as she played Rennie, a woman who became pregnant at only 16 years old, because of what I assume to be, as not having enough pride in herself. Although Rudman portrayed her character extremely well, I sometimes wondered if she was at a loss of what to do as far as movements were concerned.

The director of The Most Massive Woman Wins is Ashley Bundy, a member of Senior Theatre Company and the assistant director is Connor Jones, a member of STC as well. I thought Ashley’s choices for blocking and progression were very creative and worked very well. However, I felt that the ending was not developed enough and turned out to be somewhat anticlimactic. Generally speaking however, this show was very well done and I was pleasantly surprised with it as a whole.

The next performance was Picasso at the Lapin Agile and one of the first characters on stage, when the lights came up, was played by Connor Jones who portrayed what seemed to be a middle aged, wily French womanizer. Jones excellently played this character with the perfect amount of sleaze and comedy. Other characters in this play consisted of a nineteen-year-old temptress played by Hailey Landers, who was still hung up on her brief affair with Pablo Picasso. I thought that Landers’ French accent was very well executed and when she was in her character, she was wonderful. However I felt that there were a couple times when she let her character drop.

Jack Christofferson played Albert Einstein, who was sitting in the bar waiting for a beautiful woman with long red hair. Although Christofferson had excellent character execution and was very well fit for his role, his French accent was not quite consistent either. And as much as I wished the beautiful woman with long red hair he was waiting for was me, she was portrayed by Macicalie Rolle. I thought she did very well in her long, slow, seductive movements, but her speech was very quiet, therefore I could not analyze what she said to a full extent. The bartender’s wife at The Lapin Agile was played by Cecily Boley. In my opinion, Boley did very well in her character. She looked and felt like a loyal wife when she wasn’t chatting up Mr. Einstein. It was a delightful surprise to be shocked by the fact that she and Picasso had a brief fling as well!

Pablo Picasso was played by Doron Burks, who redefined the meaning of suffering artist that any woman would find charming. He demanded attention as soon as he came on stage and livened up the play. This was due in part to the fact that he was the one that most of the characters had been waiting for. Stephanie Muller played a neurotic art dealer who frequently came in and out of the bar and was a sort of comic relief. She committed to her character 100% and it definitely enhanced her performance. Dominic Shayler was another character randomly coming in and out of the bar providing humorous phrases and who did very well also with commitment and character choices.

Towards the end of the play, the bar got a visit from a person of the future who bore a striking resemblance to one Elvis Presley. This character was played by Jared Grenato, another junior, who did well in acting out and embracing his part of Elvis, however I was a little unsure about him at times. But he made all the women in the bar swoon and shriek very well.

The director of this play is Julia Cardi and the assistant director is Elliot Luke. I thought the choices made by these two were very well made and what stood out to me the most was the set. Overall, the set was very well built and arranged. This was not what I was expecting it to look like, and again, I was pleasantly surprised. The only criticism I have is that there were small details that stood out to me that were sloppily put together, such as the table cloths were not steamed and were plainly uneven. Other than that, it is apparent how much work went into both of these shows that shine through in each performance.

Picasso At The Lapin Agile
By Steve Martin
The Most Massive Women
By Madeline George
Directed by Seniors Julia Cardi and Ashley Bundy
Mature Audiences only: Contain mature and intellectual material