One of Santa Monica’s premier theaters will be transformed into a 1957 French studio this weekend, as one great artist slips into the role of celebrating another.
On Friday and Saturday at the BroadStage, beginning at 7:30pm, writer and performer Herbert Sigüenza will take hold of a paintbrush to portray Pablo Picasso in A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, a one-man show based on the legend’s writings and philosophy. The production from LA Theatre Works has been a longstanding love letter from Sigüenza, who has played Picasso since writing the original play in 2010.
“Ever since I was a small kid, I’ve had the gift of drawing,” Sigüenza said. “I’ve always been an artist … so [Picasso is] kind of a hero. I’ve always looked up to him as far as his amount of work, the quality of the work that he put out … ever since I was a young actor, I wanted to do this play.”
The young actor eventually evolved into a founding member of the performance group Culture Clash, which has created a series of plays based off oral histories of immigrant residents. For this weekend, however, Sigüenza will go back to the Picasso role to “capture the time” of the artist in the 1950s. Relying on materials such as the photographic book The Private World of Pablo Picasso, Sigüenza combines his love of visual artistry with his stage talents to dive into Picasso’s later years, with the show revolving around Picasso having to create multiple paintings and vases over one weekend.
“He was already a well-established artist, he was a millionaire, he didn’t really need to do art anymore,” Sigüenza said of the period piece. “And yet he did, because he was just an artist 24/7. I think that’s the message of the play, [that] we all have creativity in us.”
Picasso’s messages weren’t just constrained to creative musings, as Sigüenza also espouses the artist’s writings and philosophy, saying the show is 80% Picasso’s words with 20% of his own interpretations. Sigüenza called Picasso a “humanist” who receives a bad reputation nowadays for his misogyny, saying it is unfair to judge his life through the contemporary lens because most of Picasso’s peers also had troubling histories with women.
Sigüenza also touches on Picasso’s political views, as the artist became a member of the Communist Party in the 1940s. However, Picasso grew frustrated with the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, which Sigüenza said draws parallels to Russia’s current attempted conquest in Ukraine.
“They invaded a sovereign country, and [Picasso] was very upset at Russia about that invasion, and he denounced it … this play has a lot of political relevancy right now … innocent people being bombed, talk about invasions by Russia, all the things that are happening right now were definitely happening in the last century,” Sigüenza said.
The stage show has evolved over the past decade, with the BroadStage performance acting as a new staging with no sets, no props, just Picasso and his “students” in the audience. All the artistic visuals seen during the show are created by Sigüenza in real-time, making for an interactive, immersive experience.
“The [show was made] so that people really listen to the words,” Sigüenza said. “The script is really profound and really says a lot about positivity, about love, war, peace, all these things [that] are kind of relevant right now. I think this is just a really nice, profound piece for the times.”
Tickets for the show range from $35-65. For more information about A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, visit broadstage.org