Intimate, Wryly Agile ‘Picasso’

The Company Rep, formerly known as Actors Alley, makes a splashy and spirited debut in “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” the group’s inaugural production as an independent production entity.

Set in 1904, the play revolves around a hypothetical meeting between Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein, visionaries on the cusp of immortality. The following year, Einstein would publish his Earth-altering “Theory of Relativity,” while Picasso was shortly to launch the Cubist movement with his celebrated “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”

Written by Steve Martin, “Picasso” was first produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1993. Buoyed by the mega-wattage of Martin’s film celebrity, the Steppenwolf’s virtually unaltered production, directed by Randall Arney, then had a record-breaking run at the Westwood (now Geffen) Playhouse. The staging by Arney (now the Geffen’s artistic director), while noteworthy for the sheer lambency of Martin’s intellectual ideas, seemed oddly brittle and facile, perhaps overwhelmed by the precincts of the theater’s mid-sized space.

In contrast, El Portal’s Circle Theatre is a fittingly intimate venue for the play, which director Hope Alexander has reconceived as a flat-out vaudevillian romp, high-decibel and unflaggingly energetic.

Breathless, overwrought and fittingly passionate, Alexander’s runaway staging lends new robustness to Martin’s desultory but durable musings.

The pell-mell pacing occasionally outstrips the comic abilities of the actors, but those occasions are rare. As Einstein, Richard Wylie is rumpled, wry and formidably endearing. Although too handsome for Picasso, Eric Ashmore smolders satisfyingly in the role, while Jessica Pennington and Melanie Ewbank play sizzling femmes fatales of quite different stripes. Jackson DeGovia’s wonderful set is cheerful and eclectic, a likely spot for inspired conversation and flights of cosmic fancy.

“Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” El Portal Center for the Arts, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Wednesdays, 7 p.m.; Thursdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends March 24. $20-$25. (818) 508-4200. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.