by Geoff Hoff~

(Full disclosure: David Jette, the writer of the play Leiris/Picasso, also writes for this publication. -ed)

An existential-door slamming farce. That’s what Wednesday Night at the House of Michel Leiris: A Reading of the Play “Desire Caught by the Tail” by the Painter Pablo Picasso (otherwise known as Leiris/Picasso) is. The well timed entrances and exits, gun shots, tied up Nazis jumping their chair to move across a room and Picasso himself in all his self-important glory make the farce more than enjoyable and the intelligent script filled with shots at philosophic thought complete that.

As I said in my article about an early staged reading of this play, I love watching a show develop over time. I liked it a lot then, and still do. It is now much better, but still has a way to go before becoming a complete piece of theatre.

The script is audacious. It takes it’s start from an actual reading of the reportedly dreadful play by the master painter Picasso, attended by many of the leading artists and philosophers of France during the Nazi occupation. Some of these included Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Leiris and his wife Zette. The original evening was most probably quite serious and thoughtful — it was, after all, a dangerous act of defiance against the Nazis. That night as portrayed in the play by David Jette is unapologetically distorted and made quite silly in an oddly intelligent way. According to the program, a reproduction of a resistance newspaper, “We have added sexual and philosophical indiscretions that do not suit their well-documented personalities… [and included] countless plagiarisms, insinuations, mistruths and statements taken out of context.”

Indeed. And to a very delightful effect.

Fred Ochs, who plays Picasso, is, perhaps, the standout actor. He is obviously the most seasoned of the ensemble, and brings a wonderful bravado to his portrayal of the well-known personality of the artist. However, because he is roughly the same age that Picasso would have been at the time, it brings into stark contrast the youth of the rest of the cast, which causes a slight disconnect. These were in reality, for the most part, seasoned, mature men and women, which is pointed out by a photo of them in the program.

As in the original reading I attended, Michael Bulger plays Leiris, the reluctant but accommodating host of the proceedings. Mr. Bulger plays it with a pitch of frantic energy that is amazing in it’s consistency, reality and ability to evoke screams of laughter from the audience. It is quite a feat that Mr. Bulger’s constant energy doesn’t wear thin. Rather it keeps the evening moving forward at a pace necessary for good farce. We are always on his side even when we are laughing directly at him.

Jenny Byrd plays his clueless, social climbing wife Zette with a delightful panache. Amy K. Harmon is also wonderful as the jaded, biting, dryly sarcastic Simone de Beauvior, long time lover of Sartre. Which brings us to Sartre. Patrick Baker is a very good actor. I’ve seen him on stage now three times and intend to continue to follow his career. He has a good stage presence and a wry delivery that can be very effective. However, in this performance he seems to equate volume with humor and plays all of Sartre’s indignant posturing at top volume.

As I say, the play still needs some work, both with the script and some odd directorial choices (or, perhaps, lack of choice.) There are long passages from Picasso’s truly awful play that drag this farce down with their awfulness rather than point a humorous finger at it. In the area of direction (also by Mr. Jette), some things simply don’t make sense. As an example, there is a running joke where the Nazi soldier (played by Joseph L. Roberts) is knocked unconscious with a toilet plunger. Besides the obvious attempt at humor, it is never believable that this rubber topped device would do more than humiliate it’s victim.

Also, the Nazi at one point is stripped of his clothing and mistaken for a black man because they’ve painted him black. However, only his face is only sort of painted black, so there is no possible way he could be mistaken for anything but a slightly dirty blond white man. If they didn’t have the time to actually cover him in the black makeup, they should have seen that a compromise, such as having on an undershirt that covered more of his body, was in order.

Tyler Jenich gamely played Albert Camus but was the most obviously too young of the young cast. Melissa Powell was Dora, Picasso’s overly sexual mistress. She played it for all it’s seductive worth, but there is a line early on where she is described as a weepy woman and that texture was mostly missing from her performance. It would have been a delightful thing to see these two aspects of her personality combined. Dan Gordon plays Sam, a French Resistance fighter, with the appropriate amount of machismo and confusion at the strange goings on.

The set, by Juliana de Abreau was serviceable, but was painted in such a way that it reminded me of a high school production. One large set piece, a huge, bronze swastika, was amazing, however. (This may have been constructed by Sarah Krainin, the property master.) The costumes, by Priscilla Watson, were quite good, especially Zette’s many gowns. Lighting, by Ian Garrett, was effective. The sound design, by Dave Mickey, seemed at times a little disconnected from the proceedings.

Leiris/Picasso plays Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm through July 24th, 2010.

The Bootleg Theatre is located at 2220 Beverly Blvd, in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles, 90057, just west of Alvarado St.

Tickets are $29.00

Reservations on-line at www.BrimmerStreet.org or by phone at (213) 290-2782