A compelling but unsettling venture into the mind of a 20th century great.
Fresh from a recent 5 star review from the Edinburgh Fringe, this one man show starring Peter Tate, adapted by Tate and director Guy Masterson takes us on a journey into the posthumous psyche of one of the most famous artists of the 20th century. A set consisting of just a wooden ladder, and paint splashed sheet hung up behind Tate, as he talks us through Picasso’s story from the great beyond.
And of course we’ve heard of Picasso. The great Pablo Picasso. Our narrator is the man himself, reflecting back on his life, speaking from the present day. A man self assured of his own brilliance. This greatness is not up for debate. It is presented as fact. Save for a few moments, the journey we’re taken on doesn’t dwell on the commercial success that the artist had.
Instead, the story is framed around the timeline of Picasso’s women. We learn quickly that our artist narrator views women as commodities, as possessions to be claimed. The narrator tells us this himself, so matter of factly, so self assuredly. We’re also shown it through the way that he speaks to and speaks of his sequential love interests. The disdain he shares for his first wife who won’t divorce him after missiles of spite launched in her direction. The mistress who he laments for her inability to let him go. The women he casts aside like a bristle-less paintbrush as soon as he takes his fancy with someone new and exciting.
We learn how, for our Picasso, his abstract style was his power. He informs us he’s a ‘devout atheist’, though simultaneously views himself as a god. He claims women and the world through painting them in the abstract likeness that he alone can distort and control. Once they are his art, then they are his. He thrives in his unwillingness to distinguish his canvases from the lives he feels he’s claimed. As the play goes on, our Picasso evolves into viewing themself as a god like, powerful, untameable monster.
The narrator’s story is fleshed out by some adept posture changes from Tate to signify a brief character change, where we witness conversations between Picasso and one of his many love interests. These are executed seamlessly and well performed by Tate. In addition to this, the cotton paint splashed sheet erected behind Tate is occasionally illuminated with short video clips, containing memories of Picasso’s life. These serve as a nice touch to illustrate moments that we can share with our artist narrator as they reflect on moments of their life. Tate’s performance overall is enthralling, and easily captures the intended essence that Picasso claims to have that allowed him his god-like powers over the world around him, for better or worse.
Only as our Picasso ages and eventually becomes slightly more reliant on having help in his life, do we experience how his narcissism is forced to adapt to women who he can’t easily puppet. We see the monstrous rage that emerges when a woman dare leave him. This isn’t how it works, I’m the one who leaves – Tate’s narrator screams at us. This narcissism catches up to our narrator in the end, and at the climax our ghost is forced to confront how his views of the people and the world around him impacted his lovers, and the family he left behind.
By the end we’re left without question that the version of Picasso speaking to us is vicious, selfish, and manipulative. However the remorse our ghost narrator feels at the end is left open for debate. Does our narrator regret how he treated those who loved and worshipped him? Have we ourselves been manipulated by the great man into feeling a splotch of sympathy for the ghost in the dying moments? Does our artist think the pain caused was worthwhile collateral damage, a product of his divine rights? Just like the abstract paintings that Picasso created, this is entirely for our own interpretation. All I know is that this was a powerful, fulfilling watch that had us debating all the way home.
REVIEWER: Chris Wood