SD Rep Turns 'A Weekend With Pablo Picasso' Into A Film

Speaker 1: 00:00 Since the age of seven, Herbert sequenza has been obsessed with artist Pablo Picasso now because the pandemic has forced the San Diego rep to present its plays online. Sequenza has had the opportunity to turn his play a weekend with Pablo Picasso into a film KPBS arts reporter, Beth haka, Mondo speaks with sequenza who also plays Picasso. Speaker 2: 00:23 Herbert Picasso is a person and a character you have been living with for a lot of years. So where are the origins for this story? How long back does, how long back is your obsession with Picasso? Speaker 1: 00:38 I have been living with Picasso all my life. The story is, is I was seven years old and I went to the dentist office with my mom and in the waiting room, you know, there's always these books and magazines. And I picked up a book by Douglas Duncan of photographs called a, the private life of Picasso. I was seven years old and I was so impressed by this old man at 76 that painted wildly like a child. He painted like a child. He played around with his kids. He had goats, he had ALS he had a beautiful wife. He ran around in his underwear with no, uh, no shirt. He just looked like a free soul, a very happy soul. And I told my mom, you know, when I grow up, mom, I want to be like this heat though. I want to be like this little old man. Speaker 1: 01:29 And she says, Oh no, he's, he's Picasso. He's crazy. You know, but I never forgot that. Never forgot that. Um, so I've always, um, I was born with a drawing talent. I, uh, since I was a kid, I would draw. So I was always an artist before I was an actor. So when I be, when I became an actor, many years later, that book always was in the back of my mind. Like I knew all my life that I was going to write that play and perform that play. And then when I turned 50, 10 years ago, I approached the rep and Todd and said, Hey, uh, I showed him the book. I said, I want to do a play based off this book. And I said, okay, go ahead and write it. And sure enough that, you know, he wrote it. I wrote it. And with the help of Todd and, uh, you know, it's just become a journey. It's really become, in other words, I fulfilled what I, I set out to do since I was seven, was to play this old man named Picasso Speaker 2: 02:27 As a playwright. What was it about Picasso and his life that you wanted to tap into and that you felt were themes you wanted to explore? Speaker 1: 02:35 Well, as you know, if you know my work, I'm a political artist. My work is always been about social justice. It's always been socially based and, you know, Picasso, even though he was a pacifist, he was also a communist. He was also an activist. You know, he, he also was a, uh, uh, a supporter of the peace movement. He reacted to like the bombing of Guernica in 1937, 1939, 39. He produced one to me, one of the most, most horrifying, uh, political statements ever, which is the painting Guernica. Right. It's just amazing. And it's timeless, right? It's, it's timeless. It's, uh, you could, you could say Guernica represents the California fires. It represents all the horrors of humanity, right. In this one painting. So he knew how to be a political artist. I don't think you want it to be, you know, but he did have to react to it. And that's kind of what, that's my philosophy of art. It's not that I want to be a political artist. I just cannot sit around and not talk about what's going on in the country. You know, as it's burning, you know, I have to, I have to react. I have to talk about it. Uh, if, if this was a peaceful society and everything was equitable and everything was beautiful. Yeah. I would probably write for art's sake, you know, but I don't think we're there yet. We're far from there. Speaker 2: 04:03 This is a production you've revisited over the years. How is it playing out to you right now in the current political climate and are different ideas or themes playing different for you right now? Okay. Speaker 1: 04:17 It gets timeless. I it's, yes, of course. Everything's more elevated right now, but I think this play is timeless. And the fact that it talks about an artist that is now famous is now rich is not hungry anymore. Has done it all. He's a legend. What does he do? What, what, how can an artist react to a political statement? My play takes place after the invasion of a hungry by the Soviets and Picasso was very upset about this invasion. He thought it was, you know, it was unilateral invasion. He was not, he was very upset. Him. A lot of, um, European intellectuals were upset about this. They wrote a letter to the central command saying that we were, we, as artists are denouncing this, we don't agree with you there. Uh, of course the Soviets ignored the artists and, and, and, and, and continued to do that. Speaker 1: 05:07 But, uh, but because it was very upset. And so my play is about how does a superstar artists that has it all, how can they still be political? How can they still react to something that's going on in the world? What do you think an artist is an imbecile who has eyes, if he's a painter ears, if he's a musician, a lie in every chamber of his heart, if he's a poet, quite the contrary, he is a political being constantly alert to the horrifying, passionate, or pleasing events of the world, shaping himself completely in its image. That's what it's about. It's about him being awakened from his stupor in the South of France, you know, while he's drawing dubs and, and, and flowers, you know, this invasion is happening. And so that kind of wakes them up from his, uh, from a stupor. And he goes back to Guernica. He remembers Guernica. Like I make the parallel between Guernica and the hungry invasion. If we go back now, if we look at it contemporary, yeah. We, you know, we're in the middle East there's Wars everywhere in the world. And, and so things have not changed at all. You know what Picasso, a Picasso would be painting about that right now, Speaker 2: 06:24 As somebody who works in theater, I'm sure you would be preferring to work with a live audience and, you know, being able to meet in person, however, as someone who's been living with this play for a decade, how does it feel to now have it in a form that will be remembered forever? Speaker 1: 06:44 I am so thrilled. It was just it's fate. It's fate. You know, I would probably be S there would be no film if the, if the, if there would be no COBIT right. I mean, COBIT made us, COBIT made all theaters become like movie studios, you know, we're all putting out stuff. And so when I approached Sam and Todd saying, why don't we do, you know, cause we wanted to offer something to people. And I said, well, you know, I know Picasso, I'm ready to do Picasso. I just did it at new village arts a year ago. Uh, why don't we do a movie and they go, yeah, let's do it a bit. Let's do it as a movie. I'm going, yes, I've always wanted to do that. Let's do it. Let's elevate the stage production. And so I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled that this is, this goes beyond a stage production. Speaker 1: 07:28 You know, I think people are gonna see, uh, an elevated version of the, of the stage play. Um, what I like about the movie is that it's much more intimate, you know, you're close up. Uh, you're really seeing what Picasso's thinking about and suffering about, um, much more than in the play. So I had to tone down my acting a lot because I'm an, you know, I'm a stage actor and in film film, you have to tone down, you have to internalize the feelings and not externalize them as much. And so I'm thrilled. I'm really thrilled. And I'm very happy. Speaker 2: 08:00 Hold on. I want to thank you very much for talking about Picasso. Speaker 1: 08:03 Thank you. That was Beth Huck. Amando speaking with Herbert. Sequenza the San Diego rep debuts the film version of a weekend with Pablo Picasso on Thursday. And it will be available online through October 14th.