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Mark Nelson brings the young
Einstein to life in Steve Martin's
"Picasso at the Lapin Agile."

SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to The Jewish News

C

ould you imagine what
twentysomethings Albert
Einstein and Pablo Picasso
would talk about if they met
bar hopping?
Comedian Steve Martin could. He
wrote his ideas into a play, Picasso at
the Lapin Agile, which comes to the
Fisher Theatre Nov. 4-16. Mark
Nelson and Paul Provenza take on the
roles of the 20th-century legends.
Nelson previously portrayed the
stellar scientist Off-Broadway and in
San Francisco. Like Einstein, he has a
Jewish heritage and spent time at
Princeton. But these common threads
don't impact the fictitious and witty
material woven into the dialogue.
"One of the great things about
Steve's play is that these two geniuses
are seen as ordinary guys looking for
drinks and dates before anyone recog-
nized them as geniuses," said Nelson,
41, who won an Obie Award and the
Bay Area Critics Circle Award for his
portrayal.
"The play doesn't go into any kind
of detail about the scientific work or
even about Picasso's work. The subject
is creativity — breaking down conven-
tions, breaking through boundaries
and breaking out of ruts of percep-
tion.
"It's a very light, fun comedy, but
it's also got something interesting to
say. I've never had another role that
allows me to be as silly as a Marx
brother and as eloquent as a poet in
the same hour."
Nelson has been acting profession-
ally since his 1978 graduation from
Princeton, where he was a founder of

10/31
1997

94

the Princeton Jewish Theatre, a stu-
dent stage company that develops
with each new enrollment of Jewish
drama majors.
After Nelson's junior year, the
Princeton Jewish Theatre got a grant
from the university and New York
state to go to Brighton Beach and per-
form for Jewish immigrant senior citi-
zens. Their stage was in the basement
of a synagogue on Coney Island
Avenue, where the group, for that run,
took on the name Brighton Lights.
Nelson's Broadway roles have
placed him in four Neil Simon come-
dies as well as Amadeus and A Few
Good Men. Regional theaters have cast
him in Julius Caesar, The Cherry
Orchard and Arms and the Man. TV
audiences have seen him in "Law &
Order" and 'Another World."
Years ago, the actor's first appear-
ance at the Fisher became a new
Brighton Beach experience — Neil
Simon's autobiographical Brighton
Beach Memoirs.
"I played Stan, the 2,
older brother of
Eugene, the Neil
2,
Simon character,"
Nelson recalled.
"Jonathan Silverman
played Eugene, and we
toured together for a
year before going to
Broadway. Jonathan
recently called me
while the Picasso tour
was in Connecticut.
His dad is a rabbi in
Greenwich, and he
invited me to go to
Yom Kippur services
with him."
Nelson, in the

midst of a new 20-city tour that runs
through May, will be taking a couple
of weeks off in spring when a play he
directed Off-Broadway — June Moon
— goes to Broadway.
"I love acting and directing," said
Nelson, who is single. "The pleasure
really comes from the project. It does-
n't matter what I'm doing on it."
Another project, a mini-series for
PBS, will air at 9 p.m. Thursday-
Saturday, Nov. 23-25. "Liberty," about
the Revolutionary War, casts Nelson as
a colonial governor who remains a
British loyalist.
"There are several interesting
monologues based on actual letters
from this man," Nelson explained.
"One describes seeing a friend tarred
and feathered in the middle of the
night by rebels.
"The series presents a very startling
and opposite view of the Yankees and
gives the dark side of the Revolution."
With a deliberate focus on theater

activities, Nelson has helped raise
funds for Broadway Cares, an AIDS
charity supported by Actors Equity.
Last year, working from the Picasso
stage, the cast raised the most Off-
Broadway money for the organization.
"I'd love to be rich, but acting in
the theater is not a sure way to the
bank," Nelson said. "I've been incredi-
bly blessed to get along as well as I
have.
"Most people who act on stage have
to supplement their income with
other work such as commercials, and A.
I've managed to make it just doing
what I love." El

Paul Provenza
(left) plays
Picasso to Mark
Nelson's
Einstein.
"I've never had
another role
that allows me
to be as silly as
a Marx brother
and as eloquent
as a poet," says
Nelson.

