Farmville’s Waterworks Players take on Steve Martin’s comedically surreal play Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

Yes, THAT Steve Martin, the stand-up comic and actor in The Jerk, in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and in Father of the Bride. Most recently, Martin is co-creator and co-star in Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building.  

The setting is a bar and salon frequented by artists and intellectuals in Paris in 1904. Here, two young men happen to meet, a scientist and an artist who are destined to profoundly influence world culture. What follows is a discussion of the intertwined importance and influence of art and science and invention.

Waterworks storied and seasoned actor Jordan Whiley directs the play with a steady hand that ably guides the deceptively disorganized interplay of quirky personalities gathered at the Lapin Agile. His twelve talented cast members deserve kudos.

Eric Hooper as 23-year-old genius Pablo Picasso wonderfully commands the stage with his intensity and self-assuredness as the genius artist and womanizer.

Drew Dickerson plays 25-year-old genius Albert Einstein and channels the scientist’s blend of genius and whimsy with, if I may, Dwight Schrute lovability.

Sarah Varela steals the spotlight joyously as the hip-swiveling, blue-suede-shoe wearing Visitor from the future.

Erik Varela plays Freddy, the owner of the Lapin Agile, fully embodying his hearty joviality tempered by a tinge of world savvy and weariness.

Akilah Ramsey, as Germaine, is a headstrong woman more suited to the mid-20th century that will unfold soon enough. She reads people well and has a loving heart for her boyfriend Freddy.

Newcomer to Waterworks, Ella Estes, is delightful as the lovely and sensual Suzanne, whose attitude toward men and sex is ahead of its time and even anticipates the rise of feminism.

Long-time Waterworks actor Leigh Lunsford wonderfully embodies Picasso’s braggart art dealer and profiteer Sagot who believes his discerning and cagey eye can determine capital-A art.

Ric Andersen as Charles Dabernow Schmendiman, the egoist inventor, is a hurricane of skilled and entertaining comic relief.

Craig Challender as the newly elderly, small-bladdered patron Gaston is an every (French) man who overlays ornery gruffness with subtle charm.

Emily Kane as the Countess and Einstein’s date, who may or may not show up, is a force of privileged sensuality.

Rounding out the troupe of actors, female admirers Maria Sentz and Savannah Jenkins anticipate enthusiastic groupies drawn to famous men.

The set design and construction of the Parisian salon frequented by artists is effectively intimate. Kudos must go to local artists Jeanne Strunk’s painting of sheep in a misty field and Audrey Sullivan who skillfully replicated Picasso’s visionary cubist painting from 1907 Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

The costuming by Ruth Holliday, Sarah Varela, and Carys Lyndsey subtly captures the time and place, and the lighting by Mike Montgomery and Scott C. Chapman works well, especially at the end of the play, enhancing the emotional joy as Picasso, Einstein, and the Visitor realize their world-shaping future impact in science, in art, and in music.

Last but definitely not least, Howard Fischer’s sound design creates an accordion-sweet playlist of familiar French street tunes at the opener, punctuated by four hilarious exit-and-entrance moments throughout the play.

Be sure to catch the two remaining performances of Picasso at the Lapin Agile at 7:30 p.m., August 7and 8. Tickets can be purchased at waterworksplayers.org/buy tickets or at the box office.

Photography by Alec R. Hosterman