Bio of Steve Martin

Most of the world knows Steve Martin for his work as a comedian and actor, which continues to flourish, but it can be said that Martin’s first career was as a writer. He began to write as a student and his first break was with the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour when he was fresh from the college experience. Since then, his writing has included pieces for television and the movies as well as magazine essays, novellas and stage plays. Picasso at the Lapin Agile, was Martin’s first play, originally produced in 1996 at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. He says that his inspiration came from an afternoon he spent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, looking at Picasso’s 1904-05 painting “Au Lapin Agile.” (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pica/ho_1992.391.htm)

It is said that this work was done in partial payment for Picasso’s bar bill, a common practice among the artists who patronized the Parisian café.

The play brings us a crew of turn-of-the-century types, with their shrewd and silly banter, poised and ready for the amazing times to come. But the focus of events is an imagined meeting between Picasso and Einstein, who, along with a mystery visitor, embody the spirit of the new century. The artist and the scientist deliver a kind of nutty rivalry, but also discover an essential bond and confluence of ideas.

It seems that Martin is not the only one to intuit this connection. Arthur I. Miller, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at University College London, has written on Einstein and also on the creative connections between art and science. His 2001 book, Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty That Causes Havoc, takes up the very notions which inform Martin’s play – the important link between the Theory of Relativity and the inception of Cubism. Miller writes: “In the intellectual atmosphere of 1905 it is not surprising that Einstein and Picasso began exploring new notions of space and time almost coincidentally. The main lesson of Einstein’s 1905 relativity theory is that in thinking about these subjects, we cannot trust our senses. Picasso and Einstein believed that art and science are means for exploring worlds beyond perceptions, beyond appearances. Direct viewing deceives, as Einstein knew by 1905 in physics, and Picasso by 1907 in art. Just as relativity theory overthrew the absolute status of space and time, the cubism of Georges Braque and Picasso dethroned perspective in art.”

For more information about Steve Martin and his multi-faceted career, see www.compleatsteve.com and www.stevemartin.com