Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso walk into a bar.
This scenario isn’t the start of a joke, but it originated with someone who tells jokes for a living.
Central Coast local Dan Bullard described his choice to direct a new production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile as “a very easy decision,” based on his admiration for the show’s writer, Steve Martin.
“I was attracted to the play, then and now, due to being a huge Steve Martin fan ever since the mid to late 1970s, when he exploded onto the scene with his phenomenal stand-up comedy act,” Bullard said. “I have followed his career at every turn since then. He is truly one of this era’s leading comedic lights.”
Bullard first saw Picasso at the Lapin Agile during its West Coast premiere run in 1995 at the Westwood Playhouse in Los Angeles. When the hardback copy of the play was published the following year, Bullard bought it immediately, he said.
Friday, March 11, marks the debut of Orcutt Community Theater’s production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile, directed by Bullard. The show—which runs through Sunday, March 27—is set in 1904 and imagines a fictional meeting between Picasso and Einstein, played by local thespians Jarrod Zinn and Todd Buranen, respectively.
“When Dan cast me opposite of Jarrod, I was very excited,” Buranen said. “I have worked with Jarrod before, and have been directed by him in a show at Santa Maria Civic Theatre. But this is our first opportunity to play against each other.”
Buranen said he enjoys sporting crazy hair, a thick mustache, and “an exaggerated German accent” for his role as Einstein and cannot imagine feeling nearly as ecstatic if the two lead roles were reversed.
“I don’t think I would enjoy playing Picasso. I really enjoy the silliness and humor of Einstein,” Buranen said. “Picasso has too much swagger for my taste. No offense, Jarrod.”
Zinn, on the other hand, said he would gladly embrace swapping roles, hypothetically speaking.
“I think it would be a great deal of fun to play this iteration of Einstein, and Todd would find a lot in Picasso I’d never thought of, and haven’t,” Zinn said.
“I must tip my hat to Todd, though, as the only challenge for me would be in memorizing the flow of the dialogue itself,” added Zinn, referring to some of Einstein’s most cerebral tangents in the show. “Einstein takes us all on a flighty trip through the cosmos. … It’s certainly not your usual fodder for comedy, but Steve Martin found a way.”
Zinn said he spent about two to three weeks researching his character and the historical setting he inhabits.
“PCPA taught me many years ago to do my research first. In this case, I researched Paris of 1904. Then I researched Picasso, his life, and especially his art,” Zinn said. “He [Picasso] played with the brains of his viewers in ways no one before or since has been able to top.”
Zinn enjoyed the arc of Picasso’s progression in the show, which begins during the artist’s “blue phase” and ends in his “rose phase,” the actor explained.
At the start of the play, Picasso is primarily using blue hues, “because he was suffering the melancholy of losing his best friend to suicide,” Zinn explained, and his process of recovery is explored throughout the show, “according to Steve Martin’s peculiar stream of consciousness.”
“Moving from melancholy to joy is so important for the whole world at this time,” Zinn said. “And it’s a privilege to portray the journey.”
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood once dressed up as Albert Einstein for a history project in fourth grade. Send comments to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 10-17, 2022.
