director: Zach Curtis
set designer: Kit Mayer
light designer: Jason Underferth
costume designer: Jeffrey D. Stoltz
cast: Jerome Yorke; David Hennessey; Laura Depta; Hal Cropp; Sarah Kathryn Hawkins; Scott Dixon; Eric Bunge; Tim Sailer; Michael Van Schoik
Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso meet in a bar and discuss genius and talent. Both men are on the verge of the greatest works.
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Hmm.
The play itself doesn't strike me as powerful ... not in the way that I think it's trying be, but this production doesn't help it along and it's hard to separate one from the other.
The 'minor' characters were good. Strong. Seemed to have a clear idea of their characters and their characters' roles in the play. But the two leads, Bunge and Cropp as Picasso and Einstein, missed the mark.
Cropp's Einstein seemed much too focused on his accent. Sounds trite, but that's what I walked away with. So thick and hard to understand that I was constantly hearing people all around me asking the people around them, "What did he say?" It's nice to be authentic, but if it's a distraction it doesn't serve the play.
Beyond the accent, the character didn't strike me as a brilliant mind, but rather a kook who got lucky. Perhaps that's what Martin had in mind with the script, but I think it lacks drama.
Bunge's Picasso came across a little lighter than air. He seemed to float around the room as if he were slightly above it, rather than crashing through it. It was not an effeminate characterization, but it was also not a masculine characterization. It was tepid.
What both characters lacked was passion.
I've been fortunate to know consummate artists (friend Steven Arnold was the protegee of Salvador Dali and world renowned photographer) and brilliant scientists (I've worked with Carl Sagan) and one thing that they have in common, something that I think Martin was getting at with the play, is passion.
The truly brilliant people in any field have an absolute passion for their work, and that passion shows even more when they are on the verge of something new. The creations come from within and it wells and builds before it comes out.
That's where these two characters should have been. But they weren't. And for me, it let the play down.
