A Weekend with Pablo Picasso

Lee Williams February 24, 2011 4:00AM

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Alley Theatre fans will remember actor/playwright Herbert Siguenza. In 2003 he mesmerized audiences with his wonderfully funny ¡Cantinflas!, about one of Mexico’s most adored film stars. Then Siguenza came back in 2006 with his wildly irreverent Chicano/Latino performance troupe Culture Clash and wowed the city with Culture Clash in AmeriCCa, about diversity in the U.S. and the way it brings us together and tears us apart.

Now Siguenza is back with a new play called A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Siguenza, who has a degree in art, said in an interview with Mark Bly, the Alley’s dramaturg, that the play came out of his childhood fascination with the artist. He wrote the script by looking at what Picasso said: “I took all the quotes Picasso said during his lifetime and constructed an imaginary weekend in 1957 in his studio, La Californie.” Siguenza wasn’t trying to re-create a historical moment so much as evoke a sense of the larger-than-life Picasso’s tour-de-force personality.”My only goal as a playwright is for the audience to experience and feel like they are spending an intimate weekend with a master, a genius but also a Spanish man in exile.” 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Through February 27. 615 Texas. For information, call 713-220-5700, or visit www.alleytheatre.org. $21 to $55.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: Jan. 28. Continues through Feb. 27, 2011