Jeffrey Hatcher's A PICASSO Returns to Promenade Playhouse
By: Sally Henry Fuller Aug. 30, 2015
Paris, October 1941. Picasso is summoned by Nazi cultural attaché, Mademoiselle Fischer, in order to authenticate three of his works. Her mission: organize an exhibition of « degenerate art » for her bosses, which will culminate in a bonfire. Picasso tries to save his art by asserting that the drawings are forgeries. Will Mademoiselle Fischer succumb to Picasso's lies? Who of the two will actually save the Master's work?
A PICASSO By Jeffrey Hatcher
The curtain rises. We are in Paris, 1941. A screen projects black and white images of old Parisian streets on the Left Bank. The rue des Grands-Augustins, Picasso's studio, and his favorite hangout, Le Catalan Café, come to the forefront. The romance is contrasted by the sound of marching boots and the reality of the German Occupation. The boots invade our set, an underground vault. Lights up! Our hero, Pablo Picasso, is thrown in!
Sex, Art, Politics, Nazis, and a classy 20th century icon are all wrapped up into an intense, confrontational drama with sensitivity and wit. Mademoiselle Fischer, a beautiful, "cultural attaché", from Berlin has arrested Picasso. She needs him to authenticate three of his pieces, recently "confiscated", by the Nazis from their Jewish owners, for inclusion in a "degenerate art show", curated by Joseph Goebbles. Picasso does, whereupon he learns that the works will be destroyed in a bonfire!
Picasso needs to save his œuvre. Mademoiselle Fischer needs a Picasso to save her life. A true face to face ensues, wherein, all is at stake.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Artists are exiles. Sometimes we're exiles in a literal sense: Nabokov or Brecht, fleeing their homelands in a time of trouble; sometimes they're exiles in a figurative sense: the long list of painters, poets, playwrights, and novelists who have found a slice of bohemia inside the country of their birth. A few years ago, at the Tony Awards, a noted British theater director made an acceptance speech in which he said, "I want to thank America, by which I mean New York, by which I mean Broadway." His remarks were given a long cheer. Artists - and for the sake of argument I include myself in this group - identify with our own community far more than we do with the nations of our birth or the nations of our residence. We far prefer our own little world, even though the artistic community is probably the most borderless and treacherous nation of earth.
Pablo Picasso was an exile many times over. An exile from his family, from his social class, from Spain and - perhaps most important - he was an exile from various accepted ideas about painting. Paris was his natural home, but he never became a Frenchman. He was never really a Parisian either. And he certainly wasn't much of a joiner when it came to artistic circles, organizations, and causes. Picasso was the inhabitant of the Nation of Picasso, with a citizenship of one. In that sense, he was the perfect Modern artist: self-involved, obsessed with form, and averse to politics.
And then he painted "Guernica"...Jeffrey Hatcher
"A PICASSO" will open in a limited engagement September 25th through October 4th, 2015.
Performances are Friday & Saturday 8:00PM and Sunday 7:00PM, at The Promenade Playhouse
Tickets are $30 Opening Night and Closing Night (including Reception).
General admission $25.00 and available for purchase at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-picasso-a-powerful-political-drama-about-art-at-the-promenade-playhouse-tickets-18125105679
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