ABOUT THIS PLAY

 

This project began one day when I randomly happened on Françoise Gilot’s memoir in a bookstore. Although I have a Master’s Degree in art history, I hadn’t heard of Gilot before then, and only had the vaguest knowledge of Pablo Picasso’s life. (That’s on me.) I instantly bought Life with Picasso because it sounded like a story I could relate to on many levels. There were anecdotes of his over-the-top misogyny like I expected, but what blew my mind was Gilot’s frankness about her own agency in their relationship. She is open about the fact that she had genuine feelings for him and admired his artistic accomplishments. I found that refreshing living in a culture that often espouses black-and-white views of gender politics. On the other hand, who can resist the narrative of the long-suffering muse turning the tables on the master?

 

Reading one book on Picasso got me curious to read more, and eventually the idea for Minotauromachy took shape. I was surprised by how much I connected with all the women in Picasso’s life: the brave Fernande; Olga, the doomed ballerina; Marie-Thérèse, the girl straight out of a Lana del Rey song. They all had clear motivations and tragic flaws, the exact stuff that makes great theater. I started imagining these women recounting their stories and arguing with each other, and I knew Minotauromachy had to be a play. The title comes from a famous Picasso etching of a horse battling a minotaur, a note-perfect metaphor for his conflicted love life. 

With Minotauromachy, I aim to create the kind of theater where audiences will remember the writing above all else, and think about the play long after the drive home. I wrote it to challenge the typical New York theatergoer and hopefully make a valuable addition to the Picasso conversation.  I wrote it because I was truly surprised no one had addressed this subject in literature before. Although the women depicted in this play have long since put their sides of the story out there, it doesn’t factor into people’s assessments of Picasso, especially in the mainstream. If you can’t trust them on the matter, who can you trust?