"Very engaging! Very good fun! It's difficult not to like characters so dizzily confident of the new century and of their places in it!"
Vincent Canby, The New York Times
"More laughs, more fun and more delight than anything currently on the New York stage."
John Heilpern, New York Observer
"The most exciting new playwright in town! 'PICASSO' is a major treat! Its very presence brings hope for the current theatre!"
Linda Winer, NEWSDAY
"Steve Martin's comic wit has never been sharper!"
David Patrick Stearns, USA Today
"I'm ready to call the talent police! Steve Martin...way too much talent. This is the best first play I've seen. Steve Martin's terrific script mixes real ideas, brilliant surprises and 3,000 laughs!"
Joel Siegel, WABC-TV (New York)
"An invigorating vaudeville for the mind. Full of laughs and intriguing ideas about art and science and celebrity and creativity. The liveliest show in town! Exhilarating stuff!"
Dennis Cunningham, WCBS-Channel 2 (New York)
"Truly worth seeing! Steve Martin approaches playwriting with the energy and the reinless irony that he used in the mid-1970s to transform stand-up comedy. Martin's brain works at full throttle as he attacks the boundaries and traditions of theater!"
Laurie Winer, Los Angeles Times
"It's a hit!" in San Francisco (1996)
"It's a hit: Steve Martin's ``Picasso at the Lapin Agile,'' having grossed half a mill the first week, has been extended for six. Call me showoaf: The original name of that delightful Montmartre bar was Le Lapin a Gilles, Gilles and his rabbit being the founders ..."
"...STILL, I bestirred myself to get to the theater, and struck magic. Steve Martin's 'Picasso at the Lapin Agile,' now running to packed houses at Theater on the Square, has charm, wit, point and a knockout cast. This is the play, set in a Montmartre bar in 1904, wherein Picasso meets Albert Einstein (they never actually met) and generates heat, light and firecracker bursts of revelations. It's unfair to single out an actor in this brilliant ensemble, but Mark Nelson is unforgettable as the 25-year-old Einstein. Not to be missed: the timing of his awestruck ``I never thought the 20th century would be handed to me so casually'' when he first sees a Picasso sketch. Paul Provenza plays Picasso to the hilt and frankly, I never had a better time in the thittir."
Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle
"Martin paints a lively 'PICASSO'. The play brings a spritzy helium lift to its subject. The smart casting, vivid performances, and able direction give off a gratifying high-gloss shine!"
Steven Winn, San Francisco Chronicle
"A rollicking good time ...an enjoyable ninety-minute romp. Rich in comic banter and hilarious monologues!"
Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Examiner
"90 minutes of hilarity that shows what might have happened if absurdist Ionesco had written for the Marx Brothers. A raging stream of jokes. Solid cast from top to bottom! A triple shot of laughs with a couple of deep thoughts for a chaser! "
Pat Craig, Contra Costa Times
"A pow-wow of dizzying proportions. The goofiness that oozes from Picasso is infectious. Picasso playfully straddles the profound and the absurd ...splattering the whole affair with a sense of fun!"
Mark De La Vina, San Jose Mercury News
