Synopsis
The Frugal Repast
Published by Samuel French Inc
4 Male 4 Female
The art dealer entertains his dinner guests Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Guillaume Apollinaire, along with Picasso, and they engage in lively and urbane repartee
The two impoverished circus performers depicted in The Frugal Repast see the etching on display in the window of Vollard's gallery and determine to steal it for ransom
If the artist can make money from stealing their faces, they say, then they can make money by stealing his print
The circus acrobats cleverly use their aerial skills to perform a stunning theft of the print, leaving in its place a ransom note asking for a thousand francs
Vollard, merely amused by the theft, replaces the stolen print with another one from the same edition
The ransom note, the duplicate prints, a mysterious invitation, and a delicious chicken curry all provoke both laughter and thought as the haves and have-nots wrestle over the value of art and of life itself