Picasso at the Lapin Agileby Steve Martin

A bar in Paris, the Lapin Agile, circa 1904. A bartender, FREDDY, rubs a rag across the bar. On the wall is a three-by-four foot painting of sheep in a landscape. Upstage left is a door from the street. Upstage right is a door to a hall and toilet. We hear prerecorded accordion music of “Ta Rah Rah Boom Dee Re.” FREDDY is taking chairs off tables.

GASTON (singing offstage): Ta ra ra boom re, ta ra ra boom dee re, ta ra ra boom dee re, ta ra ra boom dee re.

FREDDY (looks up, rhapsodic): There’s something in the air tonight.

(Pause, FREDDY sneezes.)

(A man about sixty, GASTON, enters.)

GASTON (singing): Ta ra ra boom dee re, ta ra ra boom dee re, ta ra ra boom dee re, ta ra ra boom dee re.

FREDDY: Well, Gaston, you sound like you’re out of your bad mood.

GASTON: Yes, damn it. Woke up this morning, good mood. Nothing I could do about it. Ta ra ra boom dee re, ta ra ra boom dee

re… Damn my memory, what’s the next lyric?

FREDDY: I don’t know, but my guess is it’s “Ta ra ra boom dee re.”

GASTON: Great song. I wonder who wrote it?

FREDDY: Two East Indian guys. Ta Rah and Rah Boom Dee Re.

GASTON (sits): I have to pee.

FREDDY: Already? You haven’t had a drink yet.

GASTON: One day, you’ll understand.

C=Costumes, P=Props, A=Actor, S=Set, L=light, Sd=Sound

SS

SS S

A

A

Sd

PC

L

S