Theatre Review: The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso and the Mona Lisa

3/5

It’s 1911 in Paris when we join the young Pablo Picasso and his good friend and poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who, in the midst of a psychedelic absinthe trip, find themselves caught up in the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and briefly held in prison.

The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso and the Mona Lisaalso provides a (slightly fictionalised) insight into how Picasso, at the very beginning of his career, broke away from comparisons to other artists and went on to develop cubism, setting the path to become one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.

The tale of the Mona Lisa’s disappearance and the artists’ subsequent arrests is a true one, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like one here — although exuberant direction and an energetic cast does mean the early 20thcentury Parisian location, peppered with famous faces, immediately feels like it is right in front of us.

Despite this the opening scenes do seem a little over-long, and it often feels like the whole production would much prefer to tell us its aims directly than imply them in a more subtle or understated way.

Fourth Monkey is a repertory theatre company and actor training programme and this production is being staged by its students, so predictably the main negative issue is that at certain points it feels slightly amateurish and overacted. The Peculiar Tale still feels like it’s full of kids who are at the top of their class at drama school, rather than breaking through this and appearing more professional.

It could be argued, though, that the European flair, the campness, and the over the top theatrics that suggest lack of stage experience are actually fully reflective of the context that writer Steven Green is trying to recreate — so whether the production really is overacted is probably a matter for debate. The need for physical humour contrasting with serious moments, too, is a reminder of the mental state that Picasso is in throughout.

The reality and drug-fuelled artistic illusion is deliberately blurred, especially through the use of the suddenly alive Demoiselles d’Avignon (Picasso’s 1907 creation, an oil depicting a group of Spanish prostitutes) who are vaguely sinister as they float around the stage — although considering the controversy of the original painting and the way that Picasso appeared to believe that it was haunting him, more could have been made of the fear surrounding them.

Overall, The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso and the Mona Lisa is an entertaining take on the early career of Picasso and the development of such a seminal artistic voice — although it fails to move or cause us to think as much as we’d probably like.

The Peculiar Tale of Pablo Picasso and the Mona Lisa is showing at the Jack Studio Theatre, Bromley, London SE4, until Sunday 1st March. Tickets cost £14, or £11 for concessions. Find out more here.

Originally published at https://www.thenationalstudent.com.