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JESSICA PALOPOLI/SAN FRANCISCO PLAYHOUSE Baroness Hilla Rebay (played by Stacy Ross, left) and Louise Bauer (Susi Damilano, right)attempt to convince Rudolf Bauer (Ronald Guttman) to paint again in San Francisco Playhouse's world premiere production of "Bauer." sfp

Rudolf Bauer lived to paint. A pioneer of the avant-garde, he painted even when the Nazis threw him in jail for "degenerate" art. He traded cigarettes for pencils and painted on scraps of paper. His lust to find the freedom of form and line could not be stopped. Or so it seemed. Solomon Guggenheim dubbed him the "greatest living painter" and fashioned an entire museum to showcase his genius.

Why such a formidable artist stopped painting at the height of his powers and how his work fell into obscurity is the thrust of Lauren Gunderson's hauntingly beautiful new play, "Bauer." Always compelling and sometimes quite thrilling, this is a three-character drama that examines the price of art and the cost of a culture that attempts to monetize everything, even the realm of the spirit.

While the 100-minute play needs some finishing touches, it's still an exquisite exploration of the fickleness of history, the fragility of the artistic impulse and the age of regret. Insightfully directed by Bill English in its world premiere at San Francisco Playhouse, "Bauer" tries to unravel the mystery of inspiration. After its San Francisco premiere, the play will run off-Broadway at New York's 59E59 Theaters in the fall.

The Nazis could not crush him. One of the many brilliant renegades that sprang out of the Weimar Republic, Bauer scoffed at tradition to embrace the abstract. A contemporary of Wassily Kandinsky, he derided commerce. Art was all that mattered. When they branded him a subversive and forbade his work, he switched to watercolors because it was easier to conceal the smell. Even imprisoned and tortured, he sketched and hid the drawings from his captors.


Adept at mining the drama from history, Gunderson ("Silent Sky," "I and You," "By and By") laces the text with necessary expository bits with great skill. Even someone with no understanding of Bauer and his place in the pantheon of nonobjective art instantly feels the tug of that world here. While the first few scenes feel a little slow, and the ending may be overproduced in terms of special effects, "Bauer" is framed by witty banter and shot through with penetrating psychological depth and cogent performances.

Staring into the abyss of an empty studio (an apt set, also by English), mocked by the blankness of the space, Ronald Guttman's Bauer feels like a giant of a man trapped in a shell of a body. Beaten down by life, he can't fill out the space around him anymore. While his accent is sometimes a tad too thick, obscuring the lines, the actor nails the tragedy of an artist who has lost the will to practice his craft.

Seduced by his lover, the Baroness Hilla Rebay (a sublime Stacy Ross), as well as by the riches of the copper magnate Solomon R. Guggenheim, who promised to build a temple to his art, he signed away the rights to all of his work. In the end the Guggenheim estate owned not only what he had already painted (which they chose to yank off the walls and bury in the basement), but also anything he might ever paint. They owned his soul.

Crushed by the betrayal, Bauer put down his brush. The Third Reich couldn't still him, but he was no match for the brute force of capitalism.

Ross, always a fierce presence on stage, radiates Hilla's elegance as well as her monstrosity. A preening diva in a blue dress, she treats Bauer's wife, Louise (a wry turn by Susi Damilano), like a maid. She pretends not to understand how his dealings with her, as Guggenheim's chief curator, stripped him of the will to paint. She goads and bullies and teases. Anything to get him to paint once more and rescue her legacy, as a champion of abstract art, as well as his.

The tempestuous nature of their romance as well as the creative process gives this drama its red-hot pulse. The artist, the wife and the former lover dance around each other for 100 taut minutes in this visceral primer in 20th-century art history.


What: 'Bauer' by Lauren Gunderson, presented by San Francisco Playhouse
When: Through April 19
Where: 450 Post St., San Francisco
Admission: $20 to $100
Information: 677-9596;