AMUSING `PICASSO' MISSES THE MARK.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Theater Critic

It doesn't take an Einstein to realize that Steve Martin's ``Picasso at the Lapin Agile'' doesn't take itself too seriously.

That's clear from the moment Albert Einstein (Mark Nelson) and Pablo Picasso (Paul Provenza), in a showdown of egos and philosophies during a chance encounter at a bohemian Paris bistro, stalk each other with pencils until Einstein shouts, ``Draw!''

Then, naturally, the two future 20th-century icons start scribbling on little slips of paper.

``Yours is a formula!'' Picasso protests. ``So's yours!'' Einstein retorts.

Get it?

Actually, you probably won't get it if you show up at the Wilshire Theatre the next two weeks expecting self-conscious profundity. Martin's talent is for riffing, not pontificating, and with ``Picasso'' he's come up with an amusing, pun-happy pastiche of ideas and comic styles that doesn't fully congeal into a unified, original comic perspective.

Then again, that's sort of the point here. Martin's take on genius is that it's unexpected, hard to pin down, like a shooting star. ``Picasso at the Lapin Agile'' suggests that life's transcendent moments are to be found in the undiscovered theory, the rare harmonic convergence, the love affair yet to be.

Not that Martin forgets how to be funny. In Provenza and Nelson, ``Picasso'' has a brilliant comic tandem. Nelson's Einstein is a kind of nebbishy Groucho Marx: sly, aggressive and disarmingly self-satisfied, with a big, goofy horse laugh. Provenza's Picasso is a raging bull full of braggadocio, a sexual animal prone to seducing any woman in sight, be it the saloonkeeper's lusty wife (Kimberly King) or an admiring ingenue (Susannah Schulman).

Add to this party a hapless inventor (Michael Oosterom), a bon vivant art dealer (Ken Grantham) and a cranky barfly (Jim Mohr), among others, and you have laughs that fall anywhere between the broad slapstick of ``The Jerk'' and the bouncy, literate repartee of ``Roxanne.'' The stealthy, staccato dialogue sneaks up on you, when it's not wandering in circles.

Set in 1904 - the year before Einstein's ``Special Theory of Relativity'' and three years before Picasso painted his breakthrough ``Demoiselles d'Avignon'' - this tongue-in-cheek meditation on the nature of genius starts running out of juice about the time a mysterious visitor from the future (James Kruk) shows up in blue suede shoes and a pompadour. Only at this point is Martin willing to let his play venture beyond humorous hindsight into full-fledged surrealism.

Ultimately, it's disappointing that Martin seems not to have trusted his poetic talents enough to risk a bolder conclusion, a bigger vision. Still, the theater world needs smart, diverting sketches no less than big-bang theories.

THE FACTS

What: Steve Martin's ``Picasso at the Lapin Agile.''

Where: Wilshire Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays; through Feb. 1.

Tickets: $32 to $42. Call [phone].

Our rating: Two and One Half Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Paul Provenza plays Pablo Picasso in Steve Martin's ``Picasso at the Lapin Agile'' at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills.