‘Art’ entertains, but it’s no masterpiece
But is it art? That’s the question that sparks Yasmina Reza’s vastly successful 1994 play, in which three Frenchmen bicker about whether an all-white canvas is a masterpiece or a joke (hence the quotation marks around the title).
The question could equally be asked about Reza’s play itself, which expands into an exploration of heterosexual male friendship but contains no references to society or politics beyond its satire of the art world.
The self-contained nature of the story — the fact that it moves between producing contexts easily — is part of what’s made it so very successful: eight years in the West End, 600 performances on Broadway, productions in 45 countries. It’s been staged in Toronto at least two times before — in 1999 by Mirvish and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre; in 2010 by Canadian Stage — and is now being revived at Soulpepper, directed by Philip Akin.
Your response will very likely be dictated by whether or not you enjoy plays that stay in their white box.
Those who prefer theatre that takes formal risks, comments on pressing societal concerns and pushes the art form in new directions — and I declare my bias in that direction — will likely find it hard to invest much in ‘ Art’. Akin’s production is crisp and well-performed, and is a particular opportunity for Soulpepper stalwarts Oliver Dennis and Diego Matamoros to spar verbally and even physically, supported ably by Huse Madhavji as their sweet and spineless younger friend.
The premise is that Serge (Matamoros) has spent a large sum of money on an all-white painting, the latest and most extravagant expression of his recent immersion in the contemporary art scene. His more esthetically conservative friend Marc (Dennis) thinks the painting is ridiculous and a sham, but what’s really eating at him, we discover, is that Serge no longer defers to him for his artistic expertise.
Madhavji’s Yvan really doesn’t care that much about the painting: he’s caught up in his upcoming wedding but goes along with the older pair because he looks up to them and feels elevated by their friendship. Inevitably, he becomes a pawn in Serge’s and Marc’s squabbles.
The action unfolds as a series of two-hander scenes punctuated by short speeches to the audience, in which the characters comment on the action to frequently comic effect.
Design-wise the show is all clean edges, from Gillian Gallow’s set of a few chic furniture pieces with a big white wall behind, to the distinct small playing areas that Bonnie Beecher’s light creates for the monologues.
While this version of Christopher Hampton’s translation involves some tweaks to make the play sit well in a North American context (what is called a “daub” in the U.K. script is “motel art” here), the reference to the value of Serge’s painting is kept in francs (not euros or dollars), which sets the action away from the audience in time and space.
Dana Osborne’s costumes too are stylish, but not tied to a particular contemporary moment: it could be now, it could be the early noughties. All of this adds to the impression that this is intended as a generalized comment on male behaviour and human pretensions.
Reza’s dialogue is well-observed and the actors deliver it well; the ramping-up of tension to confrontation and the method that Reza contrives to allow the friends to bury the hatchet (or have they?) are clever.
The physical handling of the final scenes effectively communicates this sense of increasing rapprochement, as the men line up together on the sofa and break bread (well, snack on olives) together.
By commenting lightly on the commercialization and pretensions of the art scene, and allowing privileged theatregoers to laugh at themselves, Reza’s made a fortune.
To me, the most notable aspect of this achievement is that she’s done this as a woman satirizing how men relate to each other, and the fact that no one’s squawked so far about objectification and appropriation would indicate that her observations are acute.
This is solid craft and dependable entertainment; from a publicly-funded theatre, however, I’d hope for more.