LA GRANDE, Oregon — Steve Martin has offered to pay for an off-campus production of his play "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," which the school board banned from La Grande High School because parents objected to what they called adult content.

The actor, comedian, art collector and banjo picker says in a letter to the community that he wants to keep the play "from acquiring a reputation it does not deserve."

The 1993 play imagines a meeting between Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein in a Paris bar as they are on the verge of great achievements in painting and physics.

It is aimed at explaining "the similarity of the creative process involved in great leaps of imagination in art and science," as the letter published Friday in The La Grande Observer put it.

Last month a parent objected to the production planned by teacher Kevin Cahill and gave school officials a petition signed by 137 people. The school board halted rehearsals.

Since then, plans have been afoot for the students to present the play instead at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, with a Student Democrats group raising money.

Martin read about the controversy online, said a spokesman, Alan Nierob.

Cahill told The Observer that money from Martin would be added to the funds raised locally for the May 16-18 run -- and any left over would go for acting scholarships at the college.

Exactly how much Martin would contribute wasn't specified. His letter said he would "finance a non-profit, off the high school campus, production (low-budget, I hope!) ..."

He said the offer was aimed at allowing people to determine whether they wanted to see the play, "even if they are under 18. I predict that the experience will not be damaging, but meaningful."

Martin said he could understand how some parents might object to their 16- or 17-year-olds delivering some lines, and he said whether the play should be presented at the high school itself "remains something to be determined by the community."

He said, though, that he believed young people could be inspired by seeing the play or, if permitted by parents, by performing in it, and that the La Grande student actors seemed to understand that the "questionable behaviour sometimes evident in the play is not endorsed."

He said he disagreed strongly with local characterizations of the play as having to do with "people drinking in bars, and treating women as sex objects."

"With apologies to William Shakespeare," his letter said, "this is like calling Hamlet a play about a castle."